Do No Harm
by AleTheHOUSEwife
Summary: COMPLETE! Drama / Angst / Medical Mystery –  In the fallout of the breakup something utterly unexpected happens to House and Cuddy that will tear them apart even more while binding them forever. And this is just the beginning. Flashback story.
1. Chapter 1

**Do No Harm**

– – –

A H/Cu fanfiction – by Ale

PROLOGUE

June 11th, 2017

Cuddy gently cracked the door open and had a look inside the room. It was around ten in the morning, but it seemed like the middle of the night in there. She felt a bit cold and nauseous, like she had just crossed the border to another dimension, her eyes finding it hard to get at ease with the darkness. Yet, she felt a rush of warmth to her cheeks and hands, when she saw House leaning to the windowsill, thoughtfully staring outside through the seemingly impenetrable glass panel.

She slowly came closer, without him noticing her presence, and stood there, behind him, watching his thoughts for endless seconds, wordlessly. She recognized his aftershave in the fresh smell of his skin, while listening to the sounds of his quiet breathing. Then, she placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned her forehead to the back of his neck, skin on skin.

He didn't move. She whispered a soft "Hi" to the silence. Then, he slowly turned to her and their gazes met. He pierced her eyes with his blue, crystalline stare, as if he were about to tell her something, but then he didn't. He stood there instead, analyzing her features.

Cuddy brought a hand to his cheek, chilling at the touch of his pepper scruff, and stroked it gently, with a smile of the most sincere sweetness depicted on her face. As her lips turned slightly upwards, he imitated her gesture, guardedly. Cuddy stood on her tippy-toes and kissed his forehead, slowly sliding down to his cheek and eventually reaching his lips, which parted to kiss her back. House wrapped his arms around her shoulders and then came down to her waist, palms on her cotton-clad back, flavoring the texture of her body with his fingertips.

They quit kissing and stood there for a moment, frozen in some sort of dreamwork. She held out a long breath and adjusted his shirt with both her hands, which then she moved to his chest.

"Come on."

She took his hand and led the way to a large, single bed with a red woolen blanket thrown over it, its corners swinging down the edge of the mattress. She helped him sit down and went to the window, opening it to let the light and the breeze of upcoming summertime in. The room was suddenly soaked in the golden brightness of the morning. House hadn't lost her for the fraction of a second, his eyes had followed all her movements and actions. When she turned back to where he was seated, she saw his irises pointed in hers. He seemed fully dipped in the image of this beautiful woman dancing around his secluded room, making it come alive with some magic she only knew. Cuddy raised a smile.

"You like it, don't you?"

He reclined his head, as the corner of his mouth gently curved in the secret smile she knew so well. Cuddy came back to the bed and sat down beside him. She took his hand in hers and held it tight in her lap, resting her head on his shoulder. He looked down at her, then back at the open window and the sunlight filtering inside. She kept her gaze fixed to the window.

"Happy birthday, House."

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

_Never knew I could feel like this_

_––_

September 1st, 2014

House snoozed his way into the new week. Monday mornings were like a curse to him, he just could not find a way to be at work on time. At 9 AM he finally turned the alarm clock off and smacked it on the nightstand, then grabbing an amber bottle. He tapped a couple of white, tiny pills which were nowhere as innocuous as they looked and swallowed them while tiredly standing to his feet, leaning on the wooden bed footer. After having a look around, he realized he could not find his cane.

"Mama."

Rachel's sweet voice seemed to come from a thousand miles away. Cuddy curled up in a ball and pulled the duvet up to her eyes, which she kept wide shut, pretending she was just imagining things, hearing voices. She hated Mondays.

"Mom. _Mommy!_"

Rachel was real. Considerably real, as she was actually standing on her slippers at her mother's bedside. Feeling like the crappiest of crap, Cuddy sat up and raised a smile at her six year old girl, who looked pretty upset.

"He puked on my doll."

–

May 17th, 2011

House dropped Thirteen at her front door. He watched her climb the stairs, tiredly. He knew very well she was on the edge of her ill-fated life, the first neurological symptoms of Huntington were about to burst out. He was sorry for her. Very. Despite all his 'the human body is a machine and it can break' philosophy, House couldn't see the imminent breakdown of his colleague's life as something happening because a mechanism had broken. He painfully felt she was a human being doomed to die a lonely death before even approaching middle-age. She was born with her death-sentence engraved in her DNA: despite he desperately wanted it to mean nothing to him, he couldn't help but feel she was another flower stripped from the grass by the hands of an invisible, insensitive child.

She closed the door behind her leather-clad back and the building was all dark again. Before seeing the lights illuminating the windows facing the street from Thirteen's apartment, House started the engine and drove back home.

Cuddy kissed her daughter goodnight and went to the kitchen. She grabbed a clean cup from the counter and poured boiling tea in it. She had noticed it would take her the same time to wait for Rachel to fall asleep as tea to get ready. It was a stupid realization that yet made her smile every time: Rachel was a bouncing ball. She was a very active, particularly playful child who loved physical movement: she would have made a great dancer, a tireless turning dervish. And when she collapsed in bed at night, tea was almost slower to get ready than her sleep to finally come.

Staggering up to the sofa, Cuddy collapsed on it, hands wrapped around the hot cup. She was feeling pretty dizzy and nauseous. Her lips slowly filtered the lemon-flavored liquid.

Not that she believed in psychosomatic stuff. At all. She was a medical doctor, after all: she could _partially_ admit that a person's mind is able to make said person feel like crap. But she had been like that all day without any cause she could think of. And she was feeling like crap for nothing. She placed the cup on the coffee table and propped her knees to her chest, curling up in a shivering ball on the couch in her warm living room.

She closed her eyes and it came to her: today it would have been their one year anniversary. She hadn't seen House all day. Cuddy jumped to her feet and rushed to the bathroom, where she threw up the few she had managed to swallow since the previous morning. So much for being a skeptic.

–

May 18th, 2011

House poured fresh water on his scruffy features and flashed a glance at his own blue eyes staring at the mirror. The new mirror. The one that had replaced the poor mirror he had slammed to the floor to grab the pills from the hole in the wall behind it. One year earlier. House felt tempted to take this one down too, but then he just left it where it was resting peacefully. It wasn't hiding anything now. All the pills House had were long gone. The previous weeks had made him eager to swallow all of them to ease the pain in his soul even more than the one in his right thigh. He had to find the guts to tell Wilson he needed a prescription, and this made him feel ashamed of himself as he had never been. He had to admit defeat, surrender to his old self in front of the only person who had never given up on him: his best friend. Everybody gave up in the end. Even Cuddy had. Cuddy, who had him convinced he could change, that things, _life_, would have been different for him. Once more, House felt a sting of rage at her. He hated her as much as he loved her. As hell. He hated her for giving up and he hated himself for constantly trying to live up to her expectations. Failing.

Thirty minutes later, House parked his motorbike in the hospital lot and took off his helmet. Another day at work. As if nothing had ever happened.

Cuddy slammed the thousandth plastic blue-covered file on her desk and signed it for countersignature. It was 9.30 AM and she was there till 8. She hadn't seen a pretty damn patient, nor hospitalized ones, nor clinic ones, no nothing, no one. Administration sucked bad.

She stood up, slowly pacing the room as she sustained her stomach with both hands. It was all upside down. Her life, her job, her relationship with a still invisible House. Her stomach. Feeling the urge to vomit again, she had to leave paperwork until she grew tired of leaning to the wall of her private bathroom, seated on the cold ceramic floor, hands on her forehead, sweating the life out. She had to see House or this would have never been over.

"Cuddy!"

All wishes came true, in the end.

"Cuddy! I can hear your guilt from here. Come out."

He was there.

Cuddy tiredly stood up, leaning to the wall with one hand. She refreshed her cheeks with the other, hoping cold water could hide the fatigue from her features.

"I'm here, there's no need to…"

"Come out. I need you. Patients die."

She walked out of the bathroom.

The moment she saw him, she couldn't help it. She threw up again, on her oh-so expensive carpeted floor. In front of House. With the door to the main hall open behind him. Also, as bad things never come alone, she passed out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Never say never

––––

May 20th, 2011

That couldn't be. House focused on the coffee dancing quietly in his red cup. He stared up at Cuddy, pierced her with his glaring irises. She was on the verge of tears, black circles under her eyes, seated on the edge on the chair facing his desk. Hands entwined, she nervously bit her lower lip, incapable of any other words than the ones that had made him startle.

"Are you sure? I mean…"

"I am sure."

He knew she was. He had known since she had passed out in her office, right in front of him. He had managed to leave the cane and jump forward to take her before she fell to the ground. She was pale as hell. House was very good at piecing clues together, when he was not involved in the puzzle: this time his mind had shut down on him completely, letting him realize he had always known just now that she was saying it out loud before his terrorized eyes.

"I thought you couldn't…"

"Me too. I was wrong."

They fell silent, again. That conversation was more of a series of silent exchanges interrupted by solitary sentences, than the contrary.

House had never been so serious in his life, when he finally left his question to float mid-air.

"What now?"

––––

September 1st, 2014

Cuddy sat up.

"What?"

Rachel was about to burst in tears.

"He ruined my ragdoll, mommy."

Cuddy was already wearing her robe. She dashed out of her bedroom, now completely awake, shortly followed by her elder child.

"Tim, honey. Mommy's here."

She crossed the threshold to her children's bedroom and kneeled beside a tiny, fair-haired three year-old boy who was crying silently. He had just thrown up indeed. And he was in shame. Cuddy raised a smile. Tim was a shy, sensitive child. He was looking devastated by the utterly angry look his sister was flashing at him for ruining her favorite toy. He stared up at Rachel, slowly, wiping his nose with a sleeve, eyes glistening.

"I'm sowwy."

She turned back and paced her way out. Cuddy shook her head and let out a whisper: Rachel was the boss, that was a fact that could not be denied. Poor Tim was her faithful sidekick and him puking on her doll was something she would have needed time to forgive. Tim was in awe of his sister: he would always end up fighting for her with boys twice his age, as he felt the need to underline he was her brother and no one could ever stand on his behalf in that oh-so-privileged position. That was him, the Don Quixote of family ties. He never won against the other kids. He was too thin, too sweet, too nerdy for them. Too young, also.

"You ok now?"

She caressed her son's cheek.

"Yep."

"You want to stay home with Marina?"

Tim stood up and his eyes glistened with tears.

"No mommy!"

It was his first day of preschool. Preschool. And he was excited as if he were going to Harvard. Wondering what she had done wrong to have a child that couldn't wait to get up early and go to school, Cuddy had a better look at him. He seemed quite fine. He wanted to go to school, so he would go. He was looking rather pale and tired, but he'd had a bad night and a hard awakening, so that was probably nothing. She knew he had slipped into the kitchen to steal chocolate chip cookies for him and his sister right after she had had them ready for bed. Something had told her to leave it be: Cuddy had been feeling a true modern mother, until Tim had puked all over the place thanks to what seemed to be a ton of stolen cookies. _Well, at least they've had a nice party_.

She picked her son up and held him to her chest, rocking him so he would calm down a little. She took him to the bathroom and poured water on his cheeks, giving him him a glass of water with a few drops of lemon juice for the nausea. Half an hour later, she had her children ready for school and the mess in their bedroom sorted out.

–

"'...And if they hit you, you hit them. Okey?"

Cuddy secrety smirked at Rachel, who was back to her usual good mood and was now sharing her views on social relatioships with her brother, who looked pretty interested.

"Hit them."

"Yes. But not girls."

Tim stared up at her sister.

"Why not?"

"Because girls are my friends."

"All girls?"

"All girls. You can kiss them, instead."

"Why?"

"Because girls are cool! And pretty. If you like one, you kiss her, say 'marry me'. Right?"

"Wight."

Cuddy had to turn to her purse and pretend she was looking for something in there. So now Rachel was suggesting marriage to her three year-old brother. Marina took their jackets and backpacks and handed them in to the kids. Cuddy watched them go out with their nanny and disappear in the sun of early morning. She had a sting to her chest as Rachel's words echoed in her mind: kisses and such were stuff for children. Love sucked, and it sucked bad.

––––

May 20th, 2011

"How is she?"

"Not dying. Again."

"House..."

"She passed out, Wilson. Threw up and passed out. She's gonna live."

"I had catched a glimpse of that from your statement."

"She's not eating properly or either she ate something bad. She's already back to her morning schedule."

"What did she say?"

House turned from the window in his friend's office and approached the desk where Wilson was surfing through patient files and bad-omen-CAT scans. _Doomed specialty_.

"Like, what she said to me?"

"Yeah."

"Nothing!"

Wilson dropped his pen onto the sheets.

"House, you two haven't exactly been talking to each other since she dumped you. You've been an idiot and she's been an idiot. Full stop, be an adult, burn the pills and go back to her."

Wilson immediately regretted the path he had chosen for that conversation as he saw House's expression saddening, shadows covering his eyes.

"I can't."

"I... I know."

She didn't want to take the risk. She wasn't willing anymore. Wilson knew how empty and meaningless his suggestion was. House would have never begged her to come back. Anymore. He had a pretty clear idea of the scene that could have happened at House's place that night. Him telling her he would try his best and all that oh-so-naive shit from the 'I Can Do Better - Manual For The Hopeless' House pulled from his sleeve whenever he was about to fail once more. But since the moment she had left his building, it was over.

House collapsed onto the couch and placed his feet on the coffee table, hands entwined behind the back of his head, eyes closed. He took a deep breath.

"I need a prescription."

"What?"  
>"I need the pills."<p>

Wilson exhaled. It was a long way down to Hell. He tried.

"Sleeping pills?"

"Vicodin."

"Don't do that to yourself."

House opened his eyes and froze Wilson right where he was.

"She's pregnant."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Bruises that won't heal

–

July 10th, 2011

–

Cuddy caressed her still slight baby bump. A round, silky swelling in her abdomen was the permanent sign of their now severed relationship. She wore her cottoned sleeveless vest and looked at herself in the standalone mirror that had been flashing her perfect image to her every morning since she had owned that house. That bedroom.

She had checked for her belly to swell for endless weeks, day after day, until she had miscarried years before. Every morning as she woke up she wished to see something different in her appearance, but before she could notice the slightest change, her unborn child had left her alone.

A couple of years after that, she had rocked a pile of towels in her arms, dreaming of the upcoming arrival of her adopted baby Joy. And then her real mother had changed her mind and kept her, leaving another empty space.

Then, Cuddy had found her daughter, and holding Rachel in her arms she had taken a picture every morning of every day of the first year of their life together, standing in front of that same mirror. The mirror knew that all. It was the witness of her struggle to give a meaning to her workaholic, lonely life, to find someone who would make her selfless enough to not think only for herself _anymore_.

And now, another memory was being engraved in the silent glass. She was carrying an unexpected spark of life as a permanent reminder of a forever lost love. That was unfair and painful.

Not that she didn't want it. She could not even think of giving up her child. But she kept wondering why it had come now that she had cut House away from her life, acting selfishly towards him for maybe the first time in twenty years. She had left him because he had had to force himself to go back on drugs in order to be the man she wanted at her bedside. Only now she realized his actions were the most meaningful declaration of love from him: he was afraid to get back at square one after almost two years being clean. He had not relapsed for the sake of it, or for the fear of losing her alone. He had decided he was going to be with her, and the only way for him was to numb his pain up. He had sacrificed all for being the man she wanted to have with her.

When she was not dying anymore, she had decided he had not changed, that the pills were the most definitely tangible sign of his weakness as a person, not only of his handicapped body. And so she had left him while he begged her not to, standing in the doorframe as a picture she was getting rid of.

He had gone crazy over his broken heart, the latest, hardest disappointment life had dropped on him. The day he had married that prostitute, Cuddy had felt he was lost forever on her, and nothing would have made him come back to beg her not to leave him alone with his demons.

She had cut the cord, going back to the appearance of what they were before, knowing very well nothing would be the same again.

Three weeks later, after vomiting the life out of her, she had decided her period not showing up was something she needed to investigate on. Four months later she had to admit that she had been naive to think of other possibilities: she was pregnant. Six weeks pregnant at the time, four months pregnant now.

House left his paperwork and stared up at Cuddy, tapping the floor with her ballerinas. She was so beautiful he had to push away the thought of jumping up to his feet and grab her forearm to tell her he was missing her smell on his pillow every morning as he woke up to the realization she was no more in his life.

He popped a couple of pills from the tiny amber bottle prescribed half-heartedly by a disapproving Wilson and swallowed them, hoping she would not be there anymore when he would reopen his eyes. She was not. Beyond the glass all was quiet and deserted again. She was gone, with her curly locks loose on her shoulders and the necklace she kept fiddling with, running the pendant through her fingertips. _They_ were gone. Cuddy and her round belly. Cuddy and the small thing kicking inside her uterus. Cuddy and the fetus, her child, his... child.

Every time, House was punched right in the stomach by that realization. This one didn't make for an exception: he felt a rush of blood to the head and had to reach for his leg, squeezing the dead muscle to stop the spasms and the pain. He didn't want a child, never had. He didn't want to be a part of any child's life for the sake of not poisoning the only human beings he still respected, he still hadn't been disappointed or rejected by, the only human beings who didn't lie or manipulate. He had briefly experienced bounding with Cuddy's daughter and that had been enough. He could not handle the look in her eyes when she fixed her stare into his. The night she had curled up in his arms, he had felt all the awkwardness oozing from being loved inexplicably by someone whom he didn't owe anything to, or vice-versa. He thought he did not deserve any of that. He did not want to poison anyone else, let alone an innocent.

Seeing Cuddy thoughtfully rub her belly beyond the glass, just seconds before, had led him to his final, not so unexpected decision. He could not be part of his child's life.

"He wants out."

Cuddy placed the tea cup back on the plastic blue table. The cafeteria was full of chatter and people and noise.

"He doesn't want to be involved."

Wilson could not look more comprehensive as he tried not to show his true feelings. _What was she expecting from House?_

"I'm sorry. We know him."

He took her hand and held it for a second. She pulled away.

"Yeah, I know."

Cuddy stood up and grabbed a pile of sheets. Paperwork was saving her from clinic patients asking when she was due and all that crap she hated. She realized she was in love with paperwork right now. Who would have known?

Wilson stood up as well.

"Wait."

She turned back at him.

"What?"  
>"You are going to be fine, aren't you?"<p>

"Of course."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. See you later."

She deflected. Another useless conversation, wasted words and silent, inferential suggestions. She had learnt to deflect so well lately, it was almost impossible to catch a clue of what was really going on inside her mind. She couldn't be fine with House deciding he was not going to be part of the baby's life, but what could they do in the end? He was not the fatherly type, never would be. Plus, this thing had dropped on him: House was too delicate for that kind of news. Being announced he was going to have a child had probably broken his last certainties and he had shut himself away from the world of feelings. He wanted out, full stop. Hence the recently increased amount of Vicodin and mockery and sarcasm and all that crap towards what seemed to be the whole freaking world of the living.

In a second, Cuddy was out of sight, blended in the crowd as one among the others. Wilson felt sorry for her and House both. They had pushed themselves into this mess of a situation without even knowing it could happen. His head was spinning: taking care of both of them was starting to seem a doomed mission.

–

"Are you insane?"

"Are _you_ insane?"

"Listen, House. I am not talking you into anything."

"Then shut the hell up and enjoy the match, for god's sake."

They were at House's condo, watching some oh-so uninteresting wrestling thing Wilson totally disliked. What you do to prevent your friends to overdose, or worse.

"You guys can't screw this up."

"Sorry. We already did."

"No, I mean... She's... You can't back up. Things are going to be different."

House startled. He sat up and turned to Wilson with an incredibly sad expression. The remote dropped to the floor and the batteries rolled out of the compartment, ending up underneath the coffee table.

"I know, right?" He hissed.

"Yeah, I'm only saying..."

"_I_ am only saying this is none of your business. I don't want it, neither she does, but that's not enough for her to give it up. It would be for me."

Wilson frowned.

"Are you serious?"

"I don't care. It's her problem, not mine. _I don't-fucking-care_, Wilson."

Wilson tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. He hoped House was speaking by paradox.

_As if he thought he can convince any part of me._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_Love the way you lie_

–

September 1st, 2014

–

House had a look around. He just couldn't seem to find the cane anywhere in the room. That was just plain stupid, as he remembered pretty well he hadn't left it anywhere else in the house. Not that he could hang around without it anyway, so it just had to be there. Some-_fucking_-where.

House flashed a glance at his digital watch, laid on the nightstand: he was going to be late. He limped his way to the kitchen, leaning on every wall or piece of furniture he could find on his way there. He made coffee and sat down at the wooden, dark table, wondering. While his lips were filtering the dark, boiling liquid that would have kept him active and functioning on that oh-so-wrong Monday, he realized the cane was facing him right now, hanging from one handle of the pantry suspended above the oven. _What the hell._

He should have left it there the night before, soon after his fifth glass of whiskey, when Wilson had dropped the poker cards on the table wishing him and his drunken mind goodnight. What an idiot.

House stood up and held out his right arm, leaned on the backrest of the chair with his free hand, and finally got hold of the damn cane.

Thirty minutes later, he crossed the threshold to his favorite place in the world. Well. To the place he hated _least_ in the world, truth be told. House could easily write down in a list the reasons why he still hadn't burned the place to the ground. First one was that Wilson worked there. Wilson without his job was something House wasn't exactly dying to experience: the man was so lifeless he would have gone nuts without his daily dose of cancer patients to nurture. Another pretty important reason was that it was the place where he could most easily get a hold of Vicodin. Since he had relapsed three years earlier, Wilson had never quit obsessing over his friend's not-so-long-lost addiction and how much he disapproved it, but he had been keeping up with the prescriptions whenever House asked for them. By the way, House had never gone back to the unbearable amount of narcotics he used to take before Mayfield. He needed his fix to keep the pain down and controllable. Wilson knew pretty well that the leg wasn't the reason House had gone back on drugs, and it certainly wasn't the only reason he was still on them, but he had silently acknowledged it and never said anything explicit to his friend, whose behavior had never reached the extremes he was used to before being institutionalized.

House feared those extremes. One one hand, he desperately needed the meds. On the other, he didn't want to see non-existent people again. Never. Every morning for the past three years, he had woken up to the fear of finding Amber standing at his bedside with that creepy smile of hers, telling him how much of a failure he was, obviously on behalf of his irrational but very honest mind.

It had never happened, though. The only reality he woke up to was the absence of her. As in, Cuddy. As in, the woman he had loved for the past two decades and whose love he has pursued and pushed away at the same time. Three years had passed since she had walked away from him, following the same steps he would follow everyday to get out of his building and go to work.

That was the moment House realized the other reason why he still tolerated the place he had to spend sixty hours a week in, the place which sucked the life out of him slowly and painfully, depriving him of everything. _She_ was in there. He could see her every day. He could at least caress her with his eyes, secretly, as he saw her walking down the hallway in front of his office, or having her lunch break in the cafeteria, chatting with the nurses in the main hall. House fed himself with the sight of Cuddy. What made him even more miserable was that each glance, gaze, stolen look made him eager for more.

–

It was 10 AM. Shamelessly, House entered the hospital's main building as if it was 8 o'clock on a regular Monday morning. As always, he flashed a glance to _her_ office, whose glass doors faced the hall. She wasn't there. He limped his tired way to the nurses' station and started surfing through a pile of files from the clinic. Nothing better than starting his week with a new case.

A sudden noise coming from the automatic doors made House turn back: someone burst in and reached the nurses' station in a rush. House had to step aside in what was the best impression of a jump that was out of his possibilities.

"Good morning Brenda, I'm so sorry I'm late..."

Cuddy dropped her briefcase to the floor and started unbuttoning her trench coat with one hand, spreading pink post-it notes on the counter with the other. House froze right where he stood. _Shit_.

He was glued to the floor. For some reason, he knew he'd better go away unnoticed. Yet, that was the closest to her he managed to get in quite some time. He would do his best to talk to her the least he could. Work was not an exception. Every consent to a treatment or form to sign made him sick: he always managed to make it short and painless, as cold and impersonal as it could get. Or else, he would send Foreman. Same effect without getting sick at the sight of her.

Brenda flashed an awkward smile at House. Everyone knew about what had happened between them, albeit the utmost care they had both used in hiding the relationship before, and the break-up after. In a couple of months' time, Cuddy's pregnancy had it all ruined and their subsequent awkwardness had everyone's suppositions confirmed.

Cuddy signed a couple of forms from Administration.

"Do they really need my consent to this? I thought the insurance guy was in good terms with Debbie."

"Oh, they were indeed. But then she came back to her husband." Brenda grinned.

"I see. Well, thank you for setting these aside for me to sign, I will leave you to do your job in the Clinic all day. I promise." Cuddy smiled sincerely. "Tim got sick during the night, I had to clean up the mess and all, it was his first day of school and you know, kids..."

Brenda stared down at her files, lips tightening in an embarrassed, smile-like expression. Cuddy fell silent. House knew he was stuck the moment she turned and saw him standing there.

And... _action_.

"Hi."

Was she really talking to him?

He was feeling an idiot for the provoked dizziness her presence less than twenty feet from him was making him experience. Why the hell hadn't he limped away at first?

"Hi."

House heard his voice come out of the nothingness currently filling his insides. Brenda disappeared in the crowd: clinic was the best excuse to escape _House and Cuddy_. As a whole, ad-hoc concept construed for the sake of desperate awkwardness of everyone around in a one mile range.

Cuddy tilted her head aside as if to have a better, more penetrant look at him. She bit her lower lip, seemingly unsure wether talking or not. Then she addressed him.

"You're late."

"You too."

"Got a case?"

"Yep."

"Good."

He pierced her with his blue globes. Cuddy's head was spinning. She wanted to keep talking to House, but mentioning their son in front of him seconds before had not been a smart move. She hadn't seen him standing there, otherwise she would have kept her mouth shut, for the life of her. She had cut House away from their lives by request, and he had never asked about Tim, even just by mistake, in three years.

House grabbed a random file from the pile.

"See you then."

"See you."

–

House wished he would get invisible as fast as he could. He only wanted to disappear from her sight and her voice and her smell and presence and shape. He slipped into the nearest elevator and pushed the button. In no time, he was collapsing on his lounge chair, tossing the alleged 'new case' into the trash can.

So, the kid was ill. House wondered why on earth Cuddy had let him out to school. _Oh, well. _Her problem. It was way better for the tiny lump of clay not to have a father like him.

On the other hand, as House happened to realize from time to time, nothing could keep _the father_ from having a son.

–

December 20th, 2011

–

"You're doing great, I mean..." Wilson was pacing the room, talking to Cuddy as if he were trying to convince himself instead. He stopped abruptly, hit by some kind of inner realization that made him shake his head in disbelief. He turned back to his friend, who was lying in bed, pillows wedged behind her back, sweaty and pale as she tried to behave in front of the people working for her everyday. Every _other_ day.

"It has to be painful as hell."

Cuddy tilted her head back and screwed her eyes, all the muscles in her face tightening as she squeezed the edge of the mattress on both sides with both hands, her knuckles whitening. She shrieked, then flashed a piercing glance at him.

"Wilson, _shut-the-fuck-up!_"

A wave on the monitor hooked to her belly had a sudden peak. He rushed at her bedside.

"Go _away_!"

He jolted back, raising hands helplessly.

"No need to yell. I am going."

He made as if to walk out of the bright room.

"No, don't!"

_Was that ever going to be over?_ Wilson slowed down and stopped right in the doorframe. Hands on his hips, he turned back at Cuddy, trying to look as much condescending as he could.

"Fine. I'm here. You ok now?"

"No. Help me. I want drugs. I want... oh, _dear_..."

Another peak came and went away.

Cuddy relaxed, trying to deal with the fact that the pain was going to be on hold for at least a couple of minutes, until the next contraction. She stared up at her friend, eyes circled in red.

"Wilson, you _need_ to help me in this. Steal, manipulate, bribe. _What-ever_."

Wilson turned from her for a second, bringing his hands to his forehead and exhaling a long, long breath.

Ok, that was normal, wasn't it? Giving birth was painful. He evaluated the odds of managing to steal morphine from the Pharmacy. It lasted the ten seconds it took him to realize he was a damn sucker as regarded friends in pain. Coming back to earth, Wilson sat down beside Cuddy on the edge of the bed and placed his hand on hers.

"I know it's painful."

"No, you _don't_. No _one_ does."

"It will be over soon."

Cuddy closed her eyes and took a long breath.

"I know." She whispered.

Wilson bended over and patted her forehead and cheeks with a wet towel to refresh her.

"Hey. It's all going to be fine. I won't steal morphine for my pregnant friend in labor, but..." Wilson stood up. "What about ice chops? No need to go to jail for those."

She reopened her eyes and her lips turned upwards.

"Sounds good. You have a minute till I start insulting you again."

Wilson jumped to his feet and dashed out, almost tripping over his own unused chair, placed at Cuddy's bedside. Twelve hours of a never ending wake in that room, whose walls were starting to choke all the way on him, were starting to make him clumsier than ever. He yawned. _Ouch_.

"What the _hell_..."

Wilson stepped back, massaging his forehead. What was _House_ doing out there? His pale face either showed pain or the fact that he hadn't planned to be caught having a trip in the enemy's territories.

"You ok?"

"Yeah, sure." House leaned on the wall, rubbing the leg with the crankiest look ever. "You should sleep more. Call a hooker, get a massage, slip into a coma. My leg would thank you."

Wilson lowered his hand, frowning. _What a selfish bastard_. He adjusted his shirt, moved a step forward.

"Gotta go. Excuse me while I attend the birth of your kid."

_Whoops_. That had slipped out of his mouth before he could do anything to prevent it. Well, stumbling upon House in OB-GYN of all places, under such circumstances, had been a surprise he still needed to recover from. Too late anyway.

House grabbed the cane from the floor and hardly stood up, leaning on the wall. When he got back upright, his expression was cloudy, reflecting shadows all over his ocean-like irises. Despite the manifested hurry, Wilson had not moved an inch: something had made him change his mind, since he was just standing there, wondering. House answered his friend's silent question.

"I have a patient here."

"Yeah. And you visit patients now."

_Oh, god_. That was starting to get awkward. Was he giving a damn deposition? House frowned, restlessly massaging his leg with his free hand.

"Why do you even care?"

"I don't know. Maybe because you _happen_ to lie to people, from time to time."

House scowled. Pain-in-the-ass Wilson was a mouthful. He didn't know that his friend's mind was being crossed specularly by that same thought, that same moment. He had to get away from there as soon as possible.

"Patient's in the nursery. Unfortunately, you can't interrogate her. She's a minor."

He sidestepped him and limped away, his voice echoing behind his shoulders to a still frozen Wilson.

"Not a word will come from her!"

_Totally. She was probably born two days ago_.

Wilson went for the damn ice chops, trying to forget about House's utterly broken look when he had mentioned _his_ baby.

–

A/N Guyyys :)) THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK HERE! I've gotten a gazillion subscriptions to this story, it outranked every other story of mine and I'm honored. I would be grateful if you stopped by to leave me a review, since I have so many alerts and I know you're out there. *evilface* Spoilers for next chapter? More of baby Tim perhaps? I guess so. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_A Bittersweet Symphony_

* * *

><p>December 20th, 2011<p>

"_One more time, doctor Cuddy."_

…

"_You can do it. Hold my hand..."_

…

"_Come on, dear. He's on his way. One, two, three..."_

…

"_Push!"_

Cuddy relapsed back on the pillows wedged behind her back, breath finally slipping out of her mouth, almost tiredly, as though air could be tired of being inhaled and exhaled frantically. Her hand left Wilson's tight hold and dropped at her side. She rested there for a second, blinded and deafened by the last shot of pain.

September 3rd, 2014

"In my class we are twenty-five. Miss Nancy made me sit with Jesse, I like Jesse, we chat a lot. Miss Nancy said we must stay quiet in class, we can talk at lunch. But there was broccoli and I cried, I don't like broccoli mom, and Jesse said his mom said kids should eat broccoli..."

Cuddy tapped rhythmically on the steering wheel with her fingertips, waiting for the green light.

"Tell Jesse the world is full of nicer vegetables."

Rachel giggled and fell silent, lost in her thoughts. Her first day of elementary school was giving her much to talk about. Cuddy took a breath. One precious minute of silence before her daughter started again with her never ending recap. She pushed on the accelerator.

"Mom."

"Yeah, honey."

"Can we sing a song?"

_Aren't you tired, for god's sake?_

"Sure. What do you want to sing?"

_Say it, I'm just waiting. Say it._

"The Stones."

_Here you are. The Lord is testing me._

Rachel's earliest memories. A three year-old playing with her toys in the living room while her mother's boyfriend tried to feed her head with good stuff from the gold age of Rock and Roll. House had incredibly good taste in music, Cuddy had always had to acknowledge that. She still remembered those nights after work, when he would come over for dinner and cook for the two of them while The Stones played in the background. So out of character of him, she had to realize. On the other, so unexpected hand, those were the rare moments House had looked sincerely happy and at ease. What would break her heart every time those memories came to her mind was that he was feeling happy while not being himself. Being different for her made him happy, or at least very close to be happy. It was a nuance of non-misery that had progressed to the last stage before crossing the border to happiness, before she cut the cord, euthanizing his pursuit of serenity.

Rachel should have grown attached to that music she had listened to day after day for almost a year, and three years later she still pulled The Stones out of her innocent sleeve, showing not only her love for Jagger, but also her good memory in not missing a word of the lyrics.

Cuddy flashed her a glance through the rear mirror. The little girl was bouncing impatiently in her car seat, smiling like the sun personified.

_Wine. Lots of. Couch. Bach. A massage._

"Ok baby. Which song?"

Rachel quit bouncing. She lowered her stare thoughtfully, fiddling with her seatbelt. Then she stared up at her mother through the mirror.

"I saw her today at the reception..."

_This is not happening._

Cuddy swallowed the lump in her throat and joined her daughter, swearing the gods above would pay for that, one day.

"A glass of wine in her hand..."

They would be home in no time, wouldn't they?

"I knew she was gonna meet her connection..."

"At her feet was a footloose man!"

Cuddy was starting to find that amusing. Almost. She raised her voice along with Rachel.

"You can't always get what you want!"

"You can't always get what you wa-ant!"

"You can't a-al-ways get what you want!"

"But if you try sometimes..."

"You might find..."

"If you try sometimes..."

"You might find!"

"Mom."

_You get what you need._

"Hi, baby."

Tim was now awake, an interrogative look in his beautiful eyes of blue. The thirty-minutes drive home had been a chance for his nap. Rachel turned to her brother, then to Cuddy.

"The song, mommy!"

Tim was not willing to drop it. He sat up and patted Cuddy's shoulder from behind.

"Mom!"

"Sit back kids, stay quiet."

"We missed _You get what you need_..."

"Mama!"

"Shut up Timmy!"

"Rachel, apologize _now_!"

"But mommy..."

"Mom! Listen!"

"He ruined my song!"

"Say. _Sorry_."

Cuddy fixed her stare into the traffic ahead.

_Please God, make them shut the hell up._

Rachel fell back to the backrest, pouting. She turned to the window and looked pointedly through the glass. Tim grabbed the headrest with both hands to help himself pull up to the edge of the car seat.

"Mama."

Cuddy released a long breath. She flashed a glance at him through the mirror.

"What is it, Tim?"

Tim was starting to raise some kind of... smirk?

"You goin' the wong way."

_What the hell._

"Sweetie, we are going home. You fell asleep after I picked you up from school."

"No mom. Wong way. Wead the sign."

Cuddy slowed down and stared up at the nearest sign.

_Crap._

She had missed her exit indeed. Freaking Stones. _Fweaking Stones_. They were now headed to downtown Trenton. Like, the opposite direction. Cuddy pulled the brakes, enjoying the quietness albeit the whole missed-exit mess. Something was bugging her more than finding their way home.

"Tim, honey, how did you know we were going the wrong direction?"

"I wead the sign mom. Said Twenton."

He had read the sign. As in 'reading'. As in... For one moment, Cuddy believed she was trapped in some sort of random, meaningless time warp. How old was her son again?

December 20th, 2011

–

Cuddy came back to reality as soon as the stinging pain in her whole lower body started to fade, leaving only numbness.

"Hey. You did it. It's over."

Wilson bended over her, placed a hand on her forehead. He could not help but smile at her in utter emotion, eyes glistening. He turned to the obstetrician and the nurse, busy with something at Cuddy's feet.

"Francine, is he all right?"

The young doctor turned to him and pulled her mask away, revealing a smile that matched the joy in her brown eyes.

"All right indeed."

She approached Cuddy and patted her shoulder, bending over her.

"You want to hold him now?"

For a second, Cuddy couldn't speak back. She just stared up at her younger colleague and fixed her gaze into hers.

"Thanks, doctor Gibbs." She whispered.

And then she found herself holding a warm bundle of pink, silky skin, breathing quietly onto her naked chest. She stared up at Wilson, in utter disbelief. The baby's eyes were completely open and attentive, piercing the world he could just partially see, as if to grasp the smallest detail his still clumsy, blue irises could process. It was like soaking into the deepest of the seas, calmly floating onto the surface of the waters.

Doctor Gibbs caressed the baby's head and smiled at Cuddy.

"He didn't cry. He came out and just... stared at me. He's totally fine, he will cry when it's time."

Cuddy looked down at her child, whose tiny hand was wrapped around her index finger.

"Doctor Cuddy, we are going to clamp your baby's umbilical cord in a couple minutes."

Doctor Gibbs went for the little drawer in the cart leaned to the wall facing Cuddy's bed footer and took her sterilized tools. She started unpacking them while the nurse brought a ceramic baby scale and placed it onto the bedside table, throwing a cottoned towel onto the plate. Cuddy placed her palm onto the back of her baby's head and caressed his blondish hair with her lips, closing her eyes for a moment. That was feeling so unreal. Doctor Gibbs came back at her bedside. Cuddy could not help but be grateful she had her: her young age and the copper curls pulled back in a ponytail matched her genuine smile and the confident look in her eyes.

"Doctor Cuddy, it's time. I'm going to take your baby for a moment after we clamp and stump the cord. Nurse Francine and I will clean him, measure him and take his footprint. Once it's all done, we are bringing the baby back to you, unless you want to take a nap before feeding him."

"Thank you. I'd like to keep him with me when you are done."

Cuddy heard her voice come out from somewhere else. She was feeling outside her body, floating mid-air above the whole scene playing in the room. Nurse Francine joined doctor Gibbs at the opposite side of Cuddy's bed. She held out a blanket and took the baby from the obstetrician's hands. Doctor Gibbs took the clamp.

"Welcome to the world, baby."

She placed it onto the cord, ready for the cut.

"Wait."

The two women turned to Cuddy.

"What is it, doctor Cuddy?"

She let her gaze wander around the room.

"Wilson."

He was leaning to the windowsill, staring outside the window. He turned back to his friend.

"Come here. Take the scissors."

Wilson felt a rush of blood to his cheeks.

"You don't... I don't want to step in..."

Cuddy raised a sincere smile.

"I want you to do it. If you agree."

Chilling to the bone, Wilson approached Cuddy's bed. He was not the one supposed to do that. Someone else had to and wasn't there. He felt excruciatingly sorry for his friends, while their kid was staring at him from Francine's arms with those well-known globes of his. Feeling watched by a lesser House, Wilson couldn't help but smile at him. _I'm gonna be a sucker for you, cutie._

He turned to Cuddy and nodded slowly, taking the clamp from Gibb's hands. It took him one second. Francine placed the baby on the scale and wrote his measures down onto a brand new patient file. Then, she picked him up and wrapped him back in the blanket, rocking him while she walked out of the room with a smile, followed by doctor Gibbs.

They gently closed the door.

Wilson took a syringe from the cart drawer and checked the label. He approached Cuddy.

"Hey."

She opened her eyes.

"I'm giving you intramuscular oxytocin to help you deliver the placenta."

She fell back to the pillows, wordlessly. Wilson stuck the needle into her shoulder and tossed the syringe in the trash can. She did not move an inch.

"You ok?"

"Yeah." She whispered. But then she could not keep it from coming.

With a helpless Wilson holding her head tight to his chest, Cuddy cried all of her tears, releasing the clashing emotions fighting for her soul since months before, finding a sudden getaway in that now silent, empty room.

Outside in the corridor, House leaned back, tiding his head till he met the cold wall. He closed his eyes and tried to erase the image of his newborn son and his friend severing his umbilical cord and the woman he loved not grasping the joy she deserved because of his absence, that filled her life more than any good memory of them he had managed to scatter to the ground of their lives.

Feeling the urge to get away from what he himself had provoked, House limped his way to the elevators, regretting the second he had made the decision to stop by the blinds and have a look beyond the border his fear could not make him trespass.

Vicodin was waiting for him in his office.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

_Can't take my mind off you_

* * *

><p>September 3rd, 2014<p>

–

House signed the last sheet and slammed the patient file closed on his desk, ready for someone more willing than him to bring it to the archive. Another closed case. This one was from the week before, a teenage girl hiding a pregnancy and ending up with totally lie-unrelated HELLP syndrome. They had saved her and the baby, but she had put him up for adoption, for the sake of happy endings.

"House?"

Foreman was standing in the doorframe, jacket on, briefcase in his hand. House stared up at him, taking of his reading glasses, which he slowly placed onto the glass panel of his desk. Foreman grabbed the handle.

"I'm going home. Is there anything else..."

"Bring this this to the archive. And turn off the lights on your way out."

House handed the file in to Foreman, eyes circled in red, an exhausted look on his face. The neurologist left the door and came forward to take it. He stood there for a moment.

"Are you gonna stare at me the whole night?"

"Are you ok, House?"

"Yeah, sure. Get out of here."

Foreman seemed to hesitate, but then he didn't speak back and just walked out of the office, flicking the switch as requested.

House swallowed a burning shot of Scotch from a square-shaped glass, then dropped the empty bottle in the trash can. The noise of glass clashing with metal made him screw his eyes, getting goosebumps all over. Not that it was painful, but he could not tell that weird numbness was pleasing either. He popped a couple of pills, not even recalling the last time he had been concerned about taking narcotics with alcohol. The muscle in his bad leg jolted in a spasm, making his startle. That was gross. _He_ was gross. What kept him from feeling like a waste of flesh and bones was that energy could not actually _get_ wasted. One day, he would have re-entered the never ending cycle of chemicals being exchanged in nature. For now, he just had to stop thinking like a pre-socratic spare-time philosopher and try to get some sleep, so maybe he could help his blood vessels relax and let this awful migraine out of his tormented head.

House's head fell back onto the headrest, his hand sliding down from his forehead.

"Hey."

_What the hell._

"What are you doing here?"

She slowly approached him. _Her smell_.

"You've sent Foreman away, haven't you?"

"Yes. And it's way past your work hours."

"I know."

She sat down on the edge of his lounge chair. They hadn't been that near since... since when exactly? House had a flashing memory cross his mind. He was seated at her bedside, joking about it not being cancer and her meaningless fears. That was when they had been _this_ near.

"Then why are you here?"

She bended over, whispering.

"Couldn't get you out of my mind."

Oh, come on.

"Cuddy. Stand up. Go home to your kids."

"I miss you."

House started shaking his head, slowly.

"W-What?"

"I guess it's time..."

She got nearer, he could feel the warmth emanating from her body. Her lips were an inch from his.

"You're not gonna..."

"Shut up, House."

She didn't kiss him. She ran her lips onto his forehead. House's head started spinning, his bloodstream set to fire. He was burning. All over. He could feel each synapse in his brain painfully ignited by that contact. Every pulsation was a shot of fire to his whole head, he could feel blood pumping and it was as if it were boiling inside his veins.

"You're... stop."

She didn't move.

"You're hurting me. _Stop_."

Cuddy's lips slided down from his forehead to his eyelids and cheeks and... lips. She stopped there for a second: his whole body aching, his head spinning and burning in pain, House had to pull away. With a terrified look in his eyes, he stared at the woman setting his blood to fire. As their gazes met, another shot of pain flowed through his head. She lowered her chin, intensely staring up at him without losing eye-contact for even a second. That was starting to scare him the hell out. What was she doing? Her stare fixed in his, Cuddy raised her right hand and placed it on House's face. It was cold as ice. He closed his eyes, savoring the sudden relief her touch had gifted him with.

Cuddy came closer, her voice nothing more than a whisper.

"Your mind holds the key."

And then he was alone, again.

–

"_House!_"

He jolted awake.

Someone was shaking him. _Chumming_ him.

"House!"  
>He opened his eyes. Who was it?<p>

"What the..."

Oh, _damn_.

_Wilson_ stood there, puzzled, looking down at him.

House sat up, looking around.

"I'm sorry, I fell asleep. What? What is it?"

"Are... are you ok?"

"I had a migraine. Got some medicine. All's fine."

"And...?"

"And then nothing! I was having sex with seventy virgins and you stepped in my dream."

"You were shaking. I came in to see if you were done with work, you were _shaking_. In your sleep."

"Sex involves shaking."

"Yes. Plus circled eyes, sweaty skin, whitening the life out, confusion, being a jerk and all that."

"I'm fine, Wilson. Get over it."

Wilson seemed to consider his friend's words. He turned back to the door and grabbed the handle.

"You gonna come?"

"No. I still need to finish up some work."

Wilson released a breath.

_Fine_. _Stay here._ _None of my business anyway, in your humble opinion._

He walked out of the room, slamming the door closed.

* * *

><p>–<p>

"Wil-soooooon!"

Tim was jumping around with a wooden sword and a t-shirt tied around his forehead, fighting imaginary enemies and making all the noise he could to wake up people sleeping on the other side of the planet. When he had heard the doorbell ringing, he had dropped the sword, rushing at the door to make it before Rachel.

Wilson could not even take his coat off, as the little boy had already jumped into his arms. He planted a kiss on his cheek, finally realizing his work day was over.

"Hi kid."

"Hi Wilson."

He placed the child onto the floor and hung his coat to the hatstand.

"I went to pweschool today!"

Tim was bouncing up and down around him.

_You seem a lot like your father, sunshine. Joyful and all_.

"I know. Your mom told me. How did it go?"

Cuddy came in from the kitchen, holding a couple of round glasses full of red wine, which she placed onto the coffee table.

"Hi. Dinner's not ready yet."

She collapsed onto the couch.

"You ok?"

"Tired."

"I see."

Rachel came down the stairs sliding down on the hand bar and jumped on the wooden floor in her ballerina shoes. Cuddy jolted on her feet.

"Rachel, for the sake of... How many times do I have to tell you?"

Too late. Tim was already climbing up the stairs. Cuddy ran for him, while her elder daughter looked at her brother in pride, covering her smirk with one hand.

"Tim."

He was already seated on the hand bar.

"I'm a knight, mommy!"

Cuddy scowled, hands on her hips.

"Tim, I swear if you don't come down _immediately_..."

Wilson flashed a glance at the little boy. _Rebellious soul, I guess I know where this comes from_.

"Hey, boy."

Tim stared down at him.

"You don't want to hurt yourself. Come on."

"Wachel does it all the time!"

The girl grabbed her mother's vest.

"I can teach him, mommy."

Cuddy stared down at her, then up at Tim.

"Fine, I'm done."

She pulled the boy from the hand bar, picking him up to come down the stairs, and placed him back on the floor, beside his sister.

"Now you, little miss, go to your room and think about how many times I've told you to quit sliding down the hand bar."

"But mom..."

"And you, Tim, sit here on the couch. No TV, no sword. I'll call you guys when dinner's ready."

Tim's eyes glistened in disappointment. He stared up at his mother, half angry, half scared of his own words.

"My dad would let me do it."

Cuddy opened her mouth as if to speak back, but nothing came out. Eyes wide open, she watched her son climb up to the couch, curling up in a ball, knees propped to his chest.

Rachel turned to her brother.

"We don't have a dad."

She flipped her hair, turning back from her mother and Wilson until they saw her disappear down the corridor. The door to her room slammed closed.

Cuddy turned to Wilson, who had witnessed the scene wordlessly. They went to the kitchen to get things ready for dinner.

–

"He's never asked. Never. I swear if I only knew..."

"Stop this. It's not your fault, ok?"

Cuddy dropped the dishes in the sink, drying her hands with the towel hanging from the wall at her left side. Dinner had been pretty quiet: Rachel and Tim had eaten without a word elapsing from their mouths and they had disappeared in their room in a blink. Cuddy had not been able to find the heart to fight them again. She stared at Wilson, looking utterly heartbroken.

"I am selfish, Wilson."

"Drop it."

"I am."

He sat down at the table, hands wrapped around his coffee cup, ready to be the listener. Once again.

Cuddy leaned back to the sink, pulling back her hair with her hands and staring up at the ceiling as if to find her answers up there.

"When I adopted Rachel, House told me I was acting selfishly."

"You wanted to have a child. What's wrong?"

"What's _wrong_?"

She laughed bitterly, lowering her stare to her friend.

"I took her with me, Wilson, without even considering that she would have grown up without a father."

"You love her. I love her. You have a beautiful family, you guys are not alone in this. I'm sure you considered everything back then. It's just..." Wilson paused, trying to be as delicate as he could. "You gave her an earful and she got offended. She's a child, Cuddy. She was angry. I'm sure she doesn't cry in her bed every night over being adopted. And House..."

Cuddy ran her index finger onto the corner of her eyes, wiping away a couple of lonely tears before they could lead the way down her cheeks to an upcoming stream.

"Tim..."

"Same be told for him. He's a sensitive boy, and he's obsessed by his sister. They go along well, you should be proud of your work."

"It's the first time he mentions his father."

Wilson shook his head in a bitter giggle.

"He didn't mention _House_. He mentioned the word, not the person."

"Still."

Cuddy brought a hand to her forehead.

"Tim doesn't even know he exists. You are not stealing his right to stay with his father. House himself asked you to stay out of it. So, please. Stop over reacting to what your three year-old says when he's angry. It makes you look like his girlfriend from preschool."

Cuddy could not help but raise a genuine smile. She came closer and sat down beside her friend, thoughtfully sipping her coffee. She was still bugged by something regarding her son. Who, apparently, had learned how to read. On his own. Before even learning how to ride a bike.

"Speaking of preschool..."

A sudden noise came from the living room. they rushed to the doorframe. Tim was seated on the carpet, the largest smile depicted on his tiny face, his blue eyes shining.

Cuddy stared at the scene in disbelief. All of her books were spread onto the carpet, couch, coffee table. Anywhere. Tim had apparently climbed up the shelves to grab the higher ones, but something had gone awry wrong as they lied in a random pile at his feet.

_Thank god he stepped away in time._

Cuddy slowly walked to her son and kneeled beside him, shortly followed by Wilson.

"Tim, honey... You have your books. Why did you need these? They're not for kids."

Tim looked at her and shook his head, as if what he was about to say were the most natural thing ever.

"My books have only figures. I got bowwwed."

He spread his arms, eyes wide open.

Cuddy stared up at Wilson, whose face could not hide the surprise of a three year-old surfing through an Anatomy atlas. He looked at her, then at Tim. Then back at her. Finally, he crouched beside the little boy.

_House's kid. What was I expecting?_

"Tim, can you... read?"

"Yep! Today I helped mommy get home!"

Wilson turned to Cuddy. She bit her lower lip.

"I missed our exit."

Tim dropped the book.

"We almost went to Twenton! Twenton is where gwandma lives. We live here."

Cuddy picked him up and held him tight to her chest, tickling his belly.

"I know right? Mom was a little tired!"

"We went to Twenton, we went to Twenton! Stop mama!"

Cuddy kissed him on the head, ruffling his golden curls. She flashed a glance at Wilson, who glanced back at her significantly.

Tim had laughed so loudly that Rachel came from her room.

"Wow! Mom never lets me touch these!"

Tim jumped to his feet, leaving Cuddy's arms.

"I did this, Wachel!"

She turned at him in admiration.

"You _rock_."

She grabbed the F volume of the leather-covered encyclopedia and started surfing through the pages.

Tim went for the pile of books he had managed to take from the higher shelf. Dragging a volume half his height onto the carpeted floor, he spread it open and lied down, flat on his stomach, elbows pointed into the pages of the Pathology atlas his father had given to his mother on her twenty-fourth birthday, right before leaving her and Michigan.

But that had happened more than two decades earlier.

* * *

><p>an: hello! I'm still here, sorry if it's been a lonely week in terms of updates, but I've given my first seminar ever at university, so I had to get ready for that! :) By the way. Next chapter something's gonna happen. If you're still here, don't forget to stop by and leave me a review. Don't want to be annoying on this matter, but it's the only way for me to know if I shall burn this story forever. :P


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

_Back at your door_

* * *

><p>–<p>

September 4th, 2014

"House."

Cuddy stood before his eyes, immersed in some unidentified kind of pristine, bright light coming out of nowhere. He could not move. His eyes hurt so much from all the brightness that he had to screen them, bringing his right hand to his forehead.

"Why are you here?"

She started walking toward him, her white gown waving. She was barefoot, curls loose on her shoulders. A hospital bracelet wrapped her left wrist.

"I am always here. I am inside you."

She was whispering weirdly, some kind of scary smile depicted on her pale face. House lowered his stare. Small drops of blood had traced her walk to where he stood.

"You ok?"

"Yeah. In the end I was. As you said."

He remembered pretty well the morning she had come out of the bathroom. _There's blood in my urine_. And everything had started falling apart. He flashed a glance at the ruby-red blood spotting the whiteness where they stood.

"You're bleeding."

She smiled.

"_You're_ bleeding."

House checked his nose, ears, clothes, utterly puzzled.

"I'm fine."

"Sure..."

She escaped eye-contact.

"Are you gonna haunt me every time I get a decent amount of sleep?"

Cuddy looked back at him.

"It wasn't cancer, in the end. Was it?"

_This whole conversation does not make sense. _

"No, it wasn't cancer."

House had to try hard not to let it all come back to his mind. He was still seeing her in her gown, the smile she had flashed at him before going into surgery. The tears in her eyes when she had told him he would have never changed. He could still feel the fear that had brought him back to the pills.

Cuddy did not speak back. House had always wondered how they had managed to miss the fact that she was already pregnant, during the tests. Maybe it was too early to see it in the ultrasound. Definitely. It should have been what, two, three weeks since...

And she hadn't lost the baby.

Cuddy slowly approached him.

"Your mind holds the key, House."

And then he was alone in the dark.

4AM

House was jolted awake by his cellphone ringing the hell out on the nightstand. Looking randomly for the light switch in the dark, he sat up, bringing the phone to his ear.

"What the hell, Wilson!"

"House, listen..."

"What time is it?"

"It's 4 AM. You've got a case."

From his friend's weirdly pitched voice, House instantly knew something was very wrong. Ten minutes later he was flying his motorbike to the hospital.

–

4.30 AM

House busted the door to his office open, tossing his helmet and leather jacket onto the lounge chair.

When he grabbed the door handle to enter the conference room, he finally saw who was standing beyond the glass panel.

He froze in the doorframe.

Cuddy stood beside the whiteboard, shivering. She was wrapped in what seemed to be the first coat she had managed to find to escape an earthquake. Underneath the coat, she wore an oversized t-shirt and a pair of cottoned trousers. She was pale as hell. House tried to forget about the obnoxious set of stings tormenting his temples and walked to the conference table, where his team had a patient file spread open.

"What, what is it?"

She swallowed.

_For god's sake. Not this._

House stared at her with resignation.

"Kids get sick. All the time."

"House..."

Cuddy's tone was beyond worried.

Wilson leaned to the whiteboard with one hand, taking a breath.

"He's been vomiting for hours. It started out as an indigestion this morning, and then he was fine. But it worsened after dinner. She called me two hours ago and I brought them here."

House had a look at the file.

"He went to school this morning, had lunch there. Whatever crap..."

Whoops. Cuddy was staring at him in surprise.

"How did you...?"

"Ears, you know. You had quite an entrance this morning."

And. It would have been way more coherent to his character if he'd just pretended he hadn't paid attention to her words. Too late. He turned back and went for the door.

"Go home, make the kid lemonade. And _you_..." House pointed his finger at Wilson. "Stop overreacting to a vomiting child. Take them back."

Without another word being spoken, House walked out of the room.

6.30 AM

"He seems fine."

"Yeah."

Cuddy and Wilson stood beside an asleep Tim, who was resting peacefully in his bed with the duvet pulled up to his chin. In the shadows of daybreak, the little boy seemed even paler. Cuddy placed one hand on his forehead.

"He's not feverish."

She caressed her child's cheek and smiled sweetly at him. Then she turned to Wilson.

"Why have we even called House?"

Wilson didn't speak back. He flashed a glance at the boy sleeping before his own eyes. The same boy whose pale, yellowish complexion had frightened the hell out of him hours before. What an idiot. He had rushed to House with his sick kid who was not sick in the end. Not that sick, at least. Not sick enough to need his father to pull him from the imaginary brink of death Wilson's mind had depicted when he had burst into Cuddy's house, fifteen minutes after her call, in the middle of the night. What-an-idiot.

They went to the living room and sat down on the couch. Cuddy reclined her head, eyes closed, leaning to the backrest. Wilson watched her rest until she fell asleep, then he went home and dressed up for a whole new work day.

–

11 AM

"Hey, you free for lunch?"

_Good. As if nothing happened. Way to go, House._

"Yeah, sure."

"Great. You're buying."

House dashed out of his friend's office. Wilson jumped to his feet.

"House!"

He turned back.

"You owe me at least twenty-five luxury meals for waking me up like you did. Thank your God they've got only salads and sandwiches here."

And then he was out of sight.

Wilson shook his head, hands on his hips, staring blankly at the empty hallway toward him. Then he just closed the door and went back at his desk, yawning.

–

"Mom!"

Cuddy jolted awake. In a second, she burst into Tim's room. The little boy giggled.

"Why you wunning?"

She closed her eyes for a second, relief exhaling along with breath.

"I thought... nothing, honey. Good morning! Are you ok?"

"Yup. Where's Wachel?"

"She's gone to school."

Tim sat up, eyes wide open.

"Mama! I have to go too! I'm late!"

Cuddy came closer and sat down on the edge of Tim's bed.

"Tim, you're not feeling well. Today you are staying at home."

"But mommy..."

"Hush, baby."

She held him close.

"We had to go to the hospital, remember?"

"Yeah."

"So you have to stay in bed for a little while, and then you can go back to school. Tomorrow, maybe. Okay?"

The little boy stared up at her.

"Okay. But I have to go tomowwow."

"Sure, baby. Sure."

"What?"

Wilson stared up at his friend from his giant mixed salad.

"What is it?"

House did not speak back. He kept his stare fixed into Wilson's, hands wrapped around his plastic cup. Wilson dropped the fork and sat back, arms crossed.

"You're gonna stare at me like this until I give you an earful about what happened this morning, aren't you?"

House's lips turned slightly upwards.

"And wipe the damn smirk off your face!"

Wilson grabbed his fork back and stuck it into the innocent salad as if he were about to kill it.

"You are a sucker."

House's grin had vanished: now he was piercing his friend's eyes right through. Wilson slowly placed the fork on the table and remained silent.

"You are a sucker, Wilson. And. It is what it is. Get over it."

"She was worried. I didn't think of the implications, because hey... there aren't any! Not everything revolves around you and your broken heart, House."

"My heart's fine. Your, though..."

"I'm not living in a soap."

House tossed the remains of his coffee into the nearest trash can he could find. The woman walking by their table with her lunch on a tray jolted back at the sight of a plastic cup splashing her vegetable soup all over. Wilson stared up at her.

"My friend is sorry..."

"No, I'm not!"

"House, shut up."

The woman flashed a puzzled look at the couple and dashed away, muttering.

They looked back at each other. Wilson seemed to have an epiphany, as he stared up at the ceiling and then back down at House.

"I know what you think. You think..." He pointed his finger at him. "You think I am rooting for you two to reunite. You think I used her sick child as an excuse. You..."

"_Exactly_."

"You can do better than this, House."

"No I can't. Because I'm already right, am I?"

"Maybe. But not in the real world. Because in the real world, you are a bastard and she is an idiot and neither of you can accept the gap between your standards and reality. So, no chance to go back."

"I don't believe you."

"In the real world, you _never_ believe me. _Quod erat demonstrandum_."

"And in _Houseworld_, you puke rainbows. _Nemine contradicente._"

"Fine, House. Can we drop the whole Latin business?"

"Sure. Gotta go."

House stood up wearily, trying to hide how hard was it to him to get to his feet from a seated position. Leaning on his cane, he took a step and then turned back at Wilson.

"By the way, it's almost four years. Neither I thought you were _that_ naïve."

House limped his way out the hospital's cafeteria, with the stare of a hopeless Wilson fixed into his stooping shoulders.

–

7PM

He was drowning. Pain-soaked to the bone, House felt as if he was about to take his last, burning breath underwater. But no, unfortunately and for the sake of the living daylights, House did not die. Instead, he could feel each drop of air blowing its way through his nostrils, throat and lungs alongside the seemingly everlasting, pulsating sting piercing his right temple, then sliding its way around his forehead adorned in pearly drops of sweat to reach the left side of his head, and then back in a loop he could not find the way to stop. Not the slightest, faintest ray of light could reach his eyes, only the pain sent blurry visions to his blinded irises, shapes of things which were not of this Earth, hectic glares and moving shadows, flailing before his blank sight as turning dervishes in a crazy, random dance of bright colors alternating with the darkest shade of black he could ever imagine. House could feel the tears streaming down his face and even they were hurting him, leaving burned trails on his skin behind them as they fell in the nothingness surrounding him.

In his ears, voices calling out names and repeating words he had already heard, sentences which had made sense for him back at the time when they were real.

_No, no, no. Don't. Don't!_

_I was wondering if we should move in together..._

_I thought I could do this._

_...And now, now I'm alone._

_...I wish I didn't, but I can't help it..._

_What do you have in your life? Honestly, tell me!_

_I can do better..._

_...And that made me a harder person, a worse person._

_You may even love me..._

_You son of a bitch! When I was getting a baby..._

_...Middle-aged, single mom who's dating a man-child. _

_They cut out a chunk of muscle the size of my fist._

_...You don't want to be like me._

_If you take the pill, you don't deserve her..._

"House! House, wake up!"

House opened his eyes to a group of people crowded around his lounge-chair.

_If you take the pill, you don't deserve her._

What was it? Their faces were so... blank, to him. Once again, the stinging, pulsating pain in his head had reached the numbness-stage and it was slowly fading into a soft, background noise. He let his gaze wander around the room. Shadows projected from the night outside onto the things in that room. Those things. Desk, books. A red ball abandoned on the carpeted floor, just beside a pair of reading glasses. The voices were still echoing in his head.

_What the hell..._

"Where am I?"

A younger man, blue tie over a white, cottoned shirt, bended over him. Fair haired.

"In your office. Are you ok?"

Australian accent.

_Crap._

"Yeah."

House grabbed the cane from the floor and jumped to his feet, making Wilson, Thirteen, Foreman and Chase step back.

"What the hell, I was taking a nap."

They looked at each other. Wilson took a breath, hands on his hips.

"You need to see Cuddy."

"No, I don't!"

Foreman handed him a file.

_No. No, no, no. _

"It's your son, House."

–


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

_Dark globe_

* * *

><p>"...He was fine, and then he had a seizure... I <em>knew<em> it..."

Cuddy was pacing the room on her stiletto heels, hands on her forehead.

"Has he shown any signs of fatigue in the last few days? Fever?"

"He was ok, I swear he was... I would have known."

Foreman flashed a significant look at House, who was standing in silence beside the whiteboard, tapping on its smooth, immaculate surface with a marker. He quit tapping and pierced Cuddy with his stare.

"Get out of here."

She stared back at him in disbelief.

"What?"

She did not move. Instead, she gazed at the team, in search for support. Thirteen stood up.

"We need her to get a decent story, House. She's the mother."

House slammed the file and marker onto the glass panel of the conference table.

"Then you don't need _me_."

He limped his way out, pushing the door to his office with the tip of his cane.

Cuddy went for the door, but she did not follow House into his room. After watching hopelessly through the glass panel, she turned back at the team.

"I'm not going anywhere. My son is sick."

They exchanged looks. Taub pulled the file up to his side of the table and opened it, gaze fixed into Cuddy's.

"How many days he's been vomiting?"

"He started out as an indigestion. He stole cookies from the kitchen, and that was two days ago."

Foreman stood up and grabbed the marker from the table. He went for the whiteboard.

_Vomiting._

_Seizures._

"What's his temperature?"

Taub checked the file.

"104."

_Fever. Hyperthermia._

Cuddy glanced at the whiteboard, then back at the team. Foreman dropped the marker and approached her. He placed one hand on her shoulder, signing at the board with his free other.

"House is a jerk. But this must be a bad case of flu. High fever like this could have triggered neurological symptoms, you know all this."

He tried to sound as soothing as he could. Cuddy turned to him.

"I know. I just... I'm admitting him. So we can keep an eye on him overnight."

Thirteen grabbed the door handle.

"I'll bring you the forms."

She walked out of the conference room.

Chase took Tim's file.

"So, we are keeping him under observation. Foreman?"

"That's fine for me." He looked at Cuddy. "Go be with him. Make sure he sleeps on his side, and that his air passage is open. Paracetamol should be enough. We'll be here in the morning to check on him."

He walked out, shortly followed by Chase and Taub.

Cuddy closed her eyes for the fraction of a second. A bad case of flu could fit: Tim had vomited multiple times, he'd had a crisis the night before but then he had stopped. And he must have raised a fever in the afternoon, while he was taking a nap. The babysitter had not noticed it until he had woken up, shivering and seizing, about a couple of hours before. Bad flu. Again, House had proven her not only wrong, but also stupidly overreacting to something which was not worth being in the same room with him and suffering like that for every angry, painful and disappointed glare coming from his blue irises, so similar to those of their sick child.

She was feeling guilty for leaving Tim at home with Marina the whole afternoon. She was already worried for her absence from the hospital in the morning, and her son didn't need her to snooze his way through recovery from vomiting. And now she just wanted to jump off her heels and sit somewhere in a corner, self-loathing over her irresponsible, not so motherly behavior.

Cuddy was not cut out for this, despite loving her children to death. Rachel had always known it somehow: she was a very independent child, always had been. Maybe she had come to implicitly accept that her mother was more than a pie-maker, lullaby-singer, cherry-cheeked housewife. Her mother would come late to her dancing exhibitions, would have to make special appointments with her teachers to meet them when _she_ was available. Her mother was a bad cook and sometimes would come home so late in the evenings that she would not see her until the day after, or the week-end after. Rachel had never let out a single word on it: she jumped into her arms whenever she came back home, she was all for Wilson coming to her dancing shows with the enthusiasm she would have if her own mother had been there, showing her tons of pictures, deafening her with her endless recaps of every second they had not been together. Cuddy knew all that from the eyes of her daughter, whose patience she felt so unworthy. Tim was on that same path. The two siblings took care of their mother at home because they could somehow perceive her awkwardness in an environment which was not her natural set. With a smile, Cuddy recalled the horrified look in her son's eyes when she had tried to improve her cooking skills. He had negated everything so emphatically that she had to let him believe she had fallen for his lies. Her new special vegetable soup sucked bad.

But in the end, Cuddy could not deny how proud Rachel was of her, how much admiration brightened Tim's eyes the first time they had seen her dressed in cap and gown, handing rolled parchments to a group of young doctors graduating from Princeton Medical School. Her books in the living room shelves, her white coat hanging from the hatstand, her medical bag abandoned somewhere in her room always got her kids' secret, admiring glances. Tim and Rachel knew she was not ordinary, but sometimes they just seemed to think she was incredibly _extraordinary_. And that warmed her heart to an extent she would never think of: the Dean of Medicine had made it to defeat her lonely, workaholic life. _Sort of_.

When she reopened her eyes, Cuddy flashed a glance at House's office, beyond the glass panel separating it from the conference room. It was dark and empty. House's helmet, jacket and keys were gone from the desk, and the lights had been turned off. Once again, he had disappeared on her.

That night, Cuddy called Rachel from the hospital. They talked for about one hour, and she savored each word coming from her daughter's recap of her school day, while watching Tim sleeping peacefully.

* * *

><p>March 7th, 2012<p>

–

"We're going to drill a hole in a man's skull. We need Cuddy's approval for that."

"We have the wife's! No need for another pain in the ass."

Foreman slammed the patient file onto the conference table and stood up.

"I'm calling her."

House turned to Chase and Thirteen for approval, but they just exchanged looks and remained silent. He tried with Taub, who just escaped eye-contact. House spread his arms.

"Oh, come on. Is that because she's all hormonal? She's not gonna fire you out of the whole postpartum-distress-crap. She doesn't care. That's why we don't have to tell her."

But Foreman had already dialed the number. He placed the receiver on the glass table, and they could hear Cuddy's voice on speakerphone, answering right after the first ring.

"What the... He's sleeping."

The team turned to House, who slammed his cane onto the table.

"Actually I'm ddx-ing. Had my beauty sleep earlier this morning."

"House!"

Cuddy's voice came out quite alarmed. Three seconds later, a baby started crying in the background.

House sat down and placed his feet upon the papers and files, hands sustaining the back of his reclined head.

"So. Seems like we have a situation here. I need to drill a hole into this man's skull..."

The baby kept crying, louder and louder, as she seemingly picked him up, inevitably pulling him closer to the receiver.

"House, I really don't need you to... _Hush baby, mom's here..._"

"Neither do I. But my employees seem to think skull-drilling needs you."

"Whatever!"  
>Foreman bent over.<p>

"House wants to do a brain biopsy on a man with mild neurological symptoms."

House pushed him aside.

"He has an infection. It's spreading. We need to identify it before..."

"...It's totally unjustified!"

"Foreman is a wimp. Listen to me..."

Cuddy tried to overcome the baby's cry and hiss at the receiver, at the same time.

"_Shut up_!"

Everything fell silent. Her voice came out as soft and she could make it.

"House, I won't let you do this until you know what you're looking for."

"He'll be dead in twenty-four hours."

"Then try your best. It's what I pay you for."

She hung up.

–

Cuddy was signing the thousandth form from Accounting, her eyes mixing up the lines, incapable to process what she wasn't actually even trying to read for real. She sustained her head resting her cheek on a palm and closed her eyes for a moment. Then something made her jolt completely awake.

House had busted the door to her office open and he was alarmingly marching toward her desk, his irises set to fire.

"What do you think I do while you excuse yourself from your job?"

She stood up and stepped back a little, surprised by his apparently explosive rage.

"House..."

"You tell me! What do you pay me for?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to wake up from a bad dream.

"House, please..."

"My patient is _dead_. And you get to do the autopsy, because I'm out of it!"

She reopened her eyes and stared at him in surprise.

"Are you crazy? He didn't die because of me..."

"Then why did he? Who's to blame? You denied your approval."

"It was a crazy procedure. Unnecessary, as _Foreman_ said."

"Oh, look at you, always hiding your pretty, bossy ass behind someone else..."

"House, shut up."

All of a sudden, his rage seemed to deflate. He lowered his stare and all she could see in him was bitterness. Cuddy approached him and their eyes and lips were just inches apart. She got chills coming down her spine.

"Your patient is dead and you don't give a crap about that. You just wanted to solve your puzzle."

House looked back at her and seemed to think about not saying what he was about to. But then he just hissed at her, slowly articulating each word.

"My patient is dead because you were too busy with your kid to do your actual job."

Eyes wide open, she stepped back, a nervous laugh depicted on her beautiful features.

"What? Who woke him up? You. Because you are an_ ass_."

House tossed the patient file into the trash can beside Cuddy's desk.

"I don't give a damn about your newly-found instincts. Either you do your job, or you get the hell out of my way."

"House..." Her voice trembled.

He turned from her and went for the door. She stood there, on the verge of tears.

"He's your child too."

House turned back.

"I wish he weren't."

And then he was out.

* * *

><p>September 15th, 2014<p>

–

House reclined his head back until he slowly, painfully met the cold tiled wall. He grabbed his right thigh with both hands, squeezing the dead flesh of his dead muscle. Dead. Everything dies, everybody dies. And everybody lies.

_Everybody lies._

He clumsily ran his right hand onto the ceramic edge of his bathtub, eyes closed, until he found the amber bottle. He brought it to his mouth and poured the last two pills, swallowing his last chance at a peaceful night.

_Everybody lies._

He had thought about giving Dial-a-Wilson a shot, but somehow he couldn't. This time, he had the feeling he just didn't want to share. He never wanted to share, actually. But this one and only time, he was also doing his very best to deny and dismiss everything, to distract everyone from even starting to notice the slightest sign of a problem in him. Again, not that the other times something was wrong he had not tried to avoid Wilson. But now he felt like those other times his behavior had clearly let out a call for help, at least to his best friend, who apparently knew him too well to classify his attitude as a none-of-your-business warning. Tampering-Wilson had to stay out of House's seemingly chronic migraines, or otherwise he would have started to depict worst-case scenarios completely out of nowhere, emphasizing the entity of just another load for House's beat-up body. Headaches have a cure, overreacting oncologists don't.

It was now a month of never ceasing pain in his temples. With a covert moan, House grabbed the pipe with both hands and pulled himself up until he got upright. Carefully, he sat down on the edge of the bathtub and brought his bad leg on the other side, reaching for the cane with one hand. When he found himself out of it, he took his bathrobe and limped his way to the kitchen, where he poured two inches of Scotch in a square-bottomed, heavy glass.

Ten minutes after, he collapsed onto the couch, where the first rays of a late-summer sun woke him up the day after, the blood vessels in his temples pulsating along with the spasms in his leg.

* * *

><p>September 16th, 2014<p>

–

"Mommy!"

Cuddy jolted awake. She tilted her head back for a second and took a breath.

_Good morning, world._

"Rachel? You got up already?"

"Yep! Mommy, can you come help me? Please?"

Oh god. Let her need ten hours of sleep.

Cuddy slowly sat up, pulling her hair back with both hands. It was high time since she hadn't had her early morning yoga practice.

_Goodbye healthy habits for singles who don't give a fuck_.

She slipped into her slippers and staggered to Rachel's room, where she found her daughter ripping her clothes out of the wooden wardrobe. Cuddy threw a glance at Tim, who was still sleeping, seemingly unaware of the noise his sister was making in there.

"Rachel, honey, what are you doing?"

Cuddy tried to whisper, approaching the little girl so she could talk without waking Tim up.

"I can't find my navy-blue dress with the red ribbon on it."

_Okay. The navy-blue...red ribbon..._

Cuddy could not process the whole description, it was early and she was sleepy and she had a fashion victim under her roof.

"It's 6.30, you should be in bed. You'll be all sleepy when you go to school."

Cuddy started to recollect her daughter's clothes and place them back inside the closet.

"But I need that, mom..."

"You could look for it before going to bed. Ask me next time, okay baby?"

She placed a hand on Rachel's shoulder and led the way to her bed. She sat down beside the little girl, helping her slipping underneath the blankets.

"Now you try and sleep for a couple of hours, and when you get up we can see if we find your dress."

Rachel glanced up at her mother with the sweetest smile ever.

"'kay."

"Fine, then. Try and close your eyes now, I'll wake you up when it's time, okay?"

Rachel turned to her side and wedged her hand under the pillow. Cuddy watched her sleep in that same position she had always preferred, since she was just a toddler. Ruffling her straight, silky hair, she stood up and threw a look at her younger son.

Tim was pale and his breath came in and out so slowly she had to come closer to hear it. He was even thinner, as he hadn't eaten properly since the day he had seized. Cuddy placed a hand on his forehead and she could feel he was probably feverish. Again. This wasn't a bad case of flu. More and more worried, she had given Tim paracetamol for the temperature and lemonade for his stomach, but he was getting worse instead of getting better and it was two weeks now.

House had to be wrong when he had dismissed her concern, even though she was still holding on to the hope he wasn't.

–

"Mom?"

Cuddy bent over to Tim, who had just opened his eyes.

"Honey, are you all right?"

"Sleepy."

"I know."

"Where's Wachel?"

He started looking around. Cuddy ruffled his hair.

"She's at school. We have to see a doctor, you need some more medicine. Okay?"

"Why?"

She fell silent for a moment.

"Why mom?"

He sat up.

"I feel like puking, mommy."

"I know. Lean back, baby."

She helped him resting on the pillows.

"I don't like the hospital."

Cuddy swallowed a lump in her throat.

"It's where mom and Wilson work."

"I know, but it smells like medicine..."

She smiled and stroked his cheek.

"It's because we make people better here."

"I am sick?"

Tim closed his eyes. He was so pale that she could see the labyrinth of blood vessels underneath his eyelids.

"You're going to feel better soon."

"m'kay."

He relapsed back into his sleep.

Cuddy stood up, bringing a hand on her forehead and pacing the room until she stopped by the window and looked blankly beyond the glass, hoping to find out it was all a weird dream. A feeling of imminent turn for the worse was eating at her medical instincts.

* * *

><p>an:sorry this took so long to come out. I am overwhelmed by uni, and then all the bad coming from Lisa leaving wiped my creativity off. I still hope someone's reading and enjoying, I don't want to bring any more drama in this, but hey, the story is planned from start to end and I need it to be that way. So enjoy and review if you have a minute to do so. :)


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

**Spin**

–

September 16th, 2014

–

10AM

House plopped down on his lounge chair, sipping boiling coffee from a plastic cup, holding on to the hope that caffeine could have a positive effect on his pulsating blood vessels. It was not even midday and he was already at his third dose of Vicodin. He noisily tossed the empty bottle into the trash can and tilted his head back on the headrest.

"House."

_Again_.

He could have easily drowned in her scent without regretting leaving this world. He savored her presence in the air surrounding his aching body, hoping to exhale his last breath and let her perfume invade his lungs in place of oxygen.

"House."

She stood there, immersed in the usual halo of pristine light, dressed in a white gown waving in an imperceptible breeze only she could feel.

"What."

"You know why I'm here."

"No, I don't."

He didn't. He was desperate to see her in those weird dreams just for the sake of that. But no, he did not know why she was there, why she kept materializing out of the stuff of his own convoluted thoughts. She approached and sat down beside him, placing a hand on his cheek.

Her eyes were filled with tears. Like that other time, when she had left him alone in the dark of his misguided decisions, causing his life to miserably fall apart once again, _once more_. She caressed his scruff, slowly shaking her head, her stare lowered.

"I'm so sorry."

House tried to reply, but he felt so tired and unconvincing that in the end he just swallowed air, his words dying away. All of a sudden, a sting in his temples made him bring his hands to the head, screwing his eyes in a distorted expression of pain.

"House."

_No, stop. Please. I can't bear any more of this._

"House..."

_Shut. Up._

"House!"

He jolted awake.

Cuddy stood beside his lounge chair, hair pulled up in a ponytail, eyes wide open and pale as if someone had drained all of her blood.

"Are you..."

_Real?_

She was indeed. She started pacing the room, hands on her hips.

House tiredly sat up.

"So, what is it?"

* * *

><p>March 8th, 2012<p>

–

"You are an idiot of such magnitude..."

"Shut up."

"She's upset. Because you can't keep your mouth shut."

"He's buying."

House limped away from the counter and slammed his lunch on the nearest table, leaving a puzzled Wilson and his wallet to deal with both their meals. The man reached him at the table and sat down in front of him, sticking a straw into his diet-coke plastic-covered glass.

"Are you stabbing your drink? There are better ways to address your anger."

Wilson stared up at him.

"You really love to deflect, don't you?"

House smirked.

"You can't even imagine."

But his expression turned to serious as soon as he started pouring salt on his fries. Wilson didn't miss it. He pointed his finger at House.

"You don't like it."

"Are you insane? Fries are second only to hookers, in my top list of what's good in the world."

Wilson seemed to leave it be. But then he couldn't resist. He never could.

"You don't like what you are."

House dropped the fork, sustaining his chin, hands entwined.

"Thanks, mom. I know I have to be proud of myself as I am."

But Wilson was not going to drop it.

"You hate what you've done to Cuddy. Because even _you_ can't accept what an ass you've become recently."

House sat back.

"She hasn't taken a maternity leave. She just... disappears every now and then. And when I need her to do her job, which would be enabling me to do _my_ job..."

"If she had taken a maternity leave, you would have wreaked havoc on the whole hospital."

"That's funny. 'Cause you know... she leaves, I wreak havoc. She doesn't leave, I behave. But then, despite _not leaving_, she leaves anyway when I don't expect her to, and so I have to ask her permission anyway. As you see, I can't take over even though she's not here. Because faithful-sidekick-Foreman has his phone ready whenever it's needed."

"She has her reasons. That's not the point."

"She's not doing her job, which would be being here from nine in the morning to five in the evening. Actually, I think she stays from two to four or something like that... But formally, she's still the head bitch in charge here."

"Because she is. She answered the phone when you guys called her. She could have turned it off."

"And then she was too busy to listen to me. Patient died. Circle of life."

"Your patient died three hours after. He would have died anyway, even in your damn OR. And the family would have sued you."

"I could deal with that. Apparently, she can't."

"But you've gone further. You..."

House didn't reply to that. He knew Wilson was referring to his _other_ words. He was ashamed of himself and he couldn't just wipe Cuddy's broken stare off his mind. That was not related to the whole patient issue. Not even close. It had its roots in House's invincible tendency to handle everything the wrong way, lost loves and unwanted children included. He timidly glanced up at his friend.

"We can't go back."

Wilson furrowed his brows. House's pindaric logic needed more than 15 years to get used to.

"What?"

House escaped eye contact. His voice was just a bit louder than a whisper.

"We can't go back. It's over."

"And you want her to hate you, so she could detach from you forever? That's why you're acting like a douche bag?"

"I am a bad person." House stood up and grabbed the cane from the backrest of his chair. "And that's all."

Once more, Wilson had to finish up eating on his thoughtful own.

* * *

><p>September 16th, 2014<p>

–

10AM

"So what is it?"

Cuddy turned to House. She was looking rather nervous. She lowered her stare and went for the ball on his desk, squeezing it with her right hand, while massaging her own forehead with a slow, circular movement of her left palm. She leaned against the desk, dark curls falling loose from the ponytail.

House tried his best to stand up decently, without looking too... crippled. He walked a couple of steps toward her, and then he stopped. Invading her space was something he wasn't allowed to do anymore.

"Are you ever going to... you know..."

He mimicked the act of speaking with his hands. She didn't move.

_Okay, this is gonna be hard, isn't it?_

"Cuddy."

She left the ball and came closer.

_Personal space. Personal space. Personal-fucking-space._

She stopped.

_Thank god._

House grabbed his thigh and squeezed it, hoping she wouldn't notice. She didn't.

"House."

"_Yes_." He nodded theatrically.

"I need your help."

He was about to reply something stupid just to break the tension, but the look in her eyes told him to leave it alone. He knew instantly what it was about.

–

12AM

"Hey, buddy."

"Hey."

Tim smiled sincerely at Taub's friendly words. Cuddy approached her son's bed and ruffled his hair.

"Tim, baby, doctor Taub is going to visit you now, ok?"

"'Kay mom."

Tim sat back and Taub went for his stethoscope. Cuddy helped the child to slip out of his hospital gown. She tickled his belly and he giggled. Taub sat down on the edge of Tim's bed and delicately put the stethoscope in place. Tim chilled.

"I know it's a bit cold, but I'm gonna be quick..."

The room fell silent as the doctor checked Tim's BP heartbeat. He turned to Cuddy.

"Seems ok."

He went for the sphygmomanometer and wrapped the cuff around Tim's arm, pumping it up.

"Ouch."

"Hold on, buddy. You're doing great."

Tim was looking rather unconvinced, but he looked up at his mother and smiled at her.

"Chwis said I'm gweat."

A sound came from the BP appliance and seconds after it faded out. Cuddy threw a glance at Taub, who glanced up at her, and then started pumping up the cuff again.

"Tim, sweetie, are you nervous?"

The little boy shook his head.

Cuddy left her side of the bed and marched towards Taub.

"What? What is it?"

He turned back at her.

"It's nothing. He's probably a little worried. I'm gonna check it another couple times."

He turned the air valve.

Again, they heard a beeping sound as the systolic rate appeared on Taub's dial and blood flew back into Tim's arm.

The little boy sat up to look at the appliance, as Taub took note of the new rates.

"Can I twy?"

Taub handed him the bulb.

"Squeeze it. When you're tired I'll take over."

"M'kay!"

Cuddy smiled. At least he was still interested in pretty anything but toys and cartoons. The little nerdy bundle of joy.

–

2PM

Taub surfed through his notes.

"High blood pressure, though oscillating."

House swallowed the last drop of his fifth coffee and tossed the plastic cup into the trash can, which was almost exploding.

Chase threw a look at it.

"Are you trying to overdose? Cuddy's gonna get pretty mad if you go west in the middle of this."

"Shut up."

House stood up and went for the coffee machine.

"We ran out of coffee. Chase, would you mind..."

Chase took a deep breath and walked out of the room.

House started pacing the room.

"So, now that Drug-Awareness-Guy is gone, where were we?"

"Elevated BP. Three measurements, 110/75, 115/80, 107/70. Maybe he was just a bit nervous."

"Drop that alarmed pitch. You're making _me_ nervous..."

Taub fell silent.

Thirteen took the file.

"Elevated BP can be a sign of kidney disease."

House raised his stare up to the ceiling, theatrically.

"Haven't we established this was just Taub being his ugly-self?"

"He took three measurements. And the kid's pretty cool. You should..."

Foreman's word died away at House's freezing glance. _You should see him_.

"So, we have fever and poor appetite, Taub-driven BP rates and a worried mother. Again, this sounds _so bogus. _You should stop falling for whatever slips out of Cuddy's pretty lips."

"He's been going on like this for two weeks. He had a streptococcus infection a month ago, and seems like he never fully recovered."

House furrowed his brows.

"And when did you think you should tell me that? Antibiotics should have weakened his body. Poor appetite, nausea..."

"And how do you explain the fever?"

Foreman surfed through the file. Nobody talked.

House threw a glance at the doorframe and froze. Chase stood there without any coffee reinforcements.

"I've just ran into Cuddy. He seized again."

Foreman instantly dashed out, shortly followed by the team.

* * *

><p>September 17th, 2014<p>

–

9AM

–

"We need a lumbar puncture."

Foreman had the file spread open on the glass table. House turned from the windowsill, leaning back to it. They couldn't decipher the expression depicted on his tightened features. For a second, he seemed about to say something very serious, but then he didn't.

"He seized. A lumbar puncture sounds totally necessary to me."

Foreman frowned.

"Whatever he has, it's neurological. We need to have a look at his spinal fluid."

Thirteen's gaze met Foreman's. She was looking pretty convinced.

"It may be encephalitis. Fever, poor appetite, seizures..."

Chase stepped in.

"...Stiff neck. I checked on him this morning, he was having trouble moving his head."

House limped away and slammed the door to his office behind him, addressing the team from the adjacent room.

"If his brain is swelling, I guess a spinal tap is not the best shot. Scan the kid, just so you're sure Chase won't kill him."

The team walked out of the conference room, leaving House alone with his thoughts.

He sat down at the desk and popped some more pills.

Not only was he worried for a child he had never even spoken with. He also needed to shove his aching head into the MRI magnet and feed it to the spinning electrons, before having another dream of a teary-eyed lost love shooting at his temples.

Of course, no one had to know.

* * *

><p>an: I'm still here. :) Lots of love to whom is still with this story... Don't worry, I'm SO going to finish it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

_A Rush of Blood to the Head_

* * *

><p>September 18th, 2014<p>

–

11AM

House cracked the door to the MRI room open and sneaked inside. It was all dark, except from the greenish light emanating from the control room. He pulled the key to the glass door from his left pocket, where he had fetched it just minutes earlier, after stealing it from a plastic-framed panel while nurse Brenda was busy with one of his own previous, whiny clinic patients, who had unknowingly paid a favor to him, distracting Brenda just for the couple of minutes it took to House to grab the key. He could have requested it for a patient, but there were no scanning sessions scheduled for the day, and even if Brenda had not checked the list, he would have had to record his presence in the MRI room just for taking the damn key, and then he would have fallen short from being caught: sooner or later, someone would have cross-checked the MRI records with the key signature just to see that someone had used the machine without any patient file resulting from that.

Secrecy was House's best shot at keeping everyone out of it.

"What are you doing here?"

_As if he could._

"House, what the hell are you doing here alone?"

He turned back just to see Wilson's shape framed by the door, light coming from outside.

"I'm busy."

"It certainly doesn't seem so."

Wilson walked a couple of steps in, hands on his hips.

"House, is there something..."

House plopped down on the control chair and crossed his legs upon the desk.

"I'm hiding from Cuddy. Happy now?"

Wilson lowered his stare, frowning.

"House, how can you..."

"She's everywhere. Sitting in during ddx's, hidden behind every corner and door to see what I do or say to my team."

"She's worried."

"I know. And I know I have to figure out something and she's doing her best to distract me. So, here I am."

Wilson didn't speak back. He just shook his head slowly, bringing a hand on his forehead, and exhaling a long, tired breath.

"I know this is pressuring you."

"Then keep your mouth shut."

"Fine. But if anything happens..."

"...Of course you will come to drag me out of here."

"Of course."

"Okay then. Bye Wilson."

That was not an invitation to get out. It was House's witty way to tell him he would kick him out in ten seconds time. Wilson slammed the door closed and left his friend alone.

House went for the metal cart and opened the first drawer, where he immediately spotted what he needed. A tiny, transparent glass bottle with a small, rounded metal lid lied inside among many others. This one, though, caught his attention as it carried a white tag with sea-green titles '_Omniscan_ – Gadodiamide – Injection'. He pulled it out and held it in his open palm, staring at it. Contrast agent based on Gadolinium, a silvery-white, ductile and incredibly rare earth-metal, highly toxic as a free ion, partially tolerated in low, diagnostic-based doses when administered as a chelated compound to enhance the contrast of the human tissues in MRI imaging.

A couple of minutes later, House injected himself with a reasonable amount of Gadodiamide micromoles per kilogram. He chilled at the stainless steel needle penetrating the thin, pale skin of the crook of his left arm. While waiting for the chemicals to flow freely through his bloodstream, House raised a bitter smile at the thought that _he_ was exactly like that nowhere-near-to-innocuous contrast agent: tolerable in small, purposely-administered doses. Otherwise deathly poisonous.

–

Cuddy leaned against the wall and tilted her head back. The hallway was all silent as no one seemed to have anything to do down there. Desolated and empty as the place was, she couldn't help but absorb that sticky sense of calm solitude through her skin. House's team was performing a dangerous test on her three-year-old, sticking an incredibly huge needle into his back to collect a sample of Tim's cerebrospinal fluid, while House was nowhere to be seen. She did not know where he was, neither she wanted to. After three days spent around him and the team, Cuddy had realized she did not _want_ to know.

She had become slowly aware of the line separating the attending from the family, that same border established by both textbooks and common sense, the wall that preserved the team of doctors, enabling them to freely discuss every possibility, saving her the emotional load of assisting to the discussion, which was about the life or death of her son.

In addition to all that, House was being weirdly absent-minded. She felt a lump in her throat at the thought of him having to save the child he had pushed away from his life, a child he had never wanted. Cuddy felt sorry for her baby boy, for herself and for House: Rachel was right, the two siblings did not have a father. And that was because she was a selfish workaholic that had realized the unbearable weight of her own loneliness as middle age was approaching, forcing together a family which could never be complete without someone at her side.

During her year with House, they had been nowhere near to the concept of family she had grown up with, but Cuddy had to acknowledge that her heart used to warm up a bit every time she quit doing things to stop and stare at her daughter spending time with the man she had never dared to hope she could have at her side.

House was a convoluted son of a bitch, but the delicacy he put in every word and gesture toward Rachel was somehow moving, since Cuddy knew very well how badly he had been treated as a child, spotting the same fear and defenselessness in his blue irises every time she got mad at him for the most insignificant reason. House knew so well how much pain a child can bear, that he had something special with children, whose respect and fascination he instantly caught. Sensitive souls matched pretty well.

Until she had left him behind, crawling desperately halfway through the road to salvation.

But then Tim was born and – god forgive her – she did not want to have another child, _House's child_, to remind her how much of a failure her attempt at building up a family had been. House was lost, hurt and guarded: her pregnancy had poured even more awkwardness on them. House had refused any contact with his offspring. His offspring didn't even know House existed. And again, Rachel was right: they did not have a father.

Cuddy startled at the sound of a door being slammed open, just to see Foreman and Chase walk out of the room in their scrubs, pulling away their masks.

"Fluid's clear."

Foreman crossed his arms, shaking his head to Chase, who took over.

"We've sent a sample to the lab, they'll have the results tomorrow morning."

Cuddy's stare shifted from Chase to Foreman, and then again to Chase, who placed a hand on her shoulder.

"The cerebrospinal fluid seemed fine. It may be nothing and it sure isn't encephalitis. In any case, you know House is not going to let go."

Cuddy couldn't keep her words from leaking out on their own.

"Is he?"

They exchanged looks, no one spoke.

–

House lied on his back inside the MRI tube, trying to silence the echoing voices filling his cloudy, aching head. Hunted down by his own daemons, a flailing, restless mind inside a body whose strength and resistance had already been tried to the limit and was now claiming it all back, House could not help but admit he was scared of the answer that would shortly materialize on the T1 weighted set of pictures that were being saved one by one, every four seconds, in the hard drive ticking softly in the adjacent, empty control room.

House tightened the grip of his fingers around the edge of the table, squeezing the coarse plastic in an attempt to restrain the shaking in his whole body, and closed his eyes. He started to evaluate the possible causes of the excruciating headaches which were putting the strains on his ability to mercifully hide his own sufferings to the rest of the world.

_Vicodin side effects. Brain tumor. Neurodegenerative disease. Psychosomatic pain. _

He could not find any comfort or relief in wishing it was just something he could put a remedy to: detox had been a nightmare he had not managed to erase from his memories yet, and the last thing he wanted was to go through that again just to find out he wasn't strong enough to stay clean and walk through life as if his wounds had healed. Same be told for his mind sending signals to his body: psychosomatic pain was something he could easily relate to, but somehow he had always been able to confine the consciousness of his own sensitivity in a secluded corner of the soul he pretended not to have. He always knew very well what was going on inside him: every second of every day of his lonely existence, Gregory House's heartbeats echoed to themselves through the void left by whatever flickering curtain of self acceptance fills the lives of any other, ordinary person. He had shut himself away more and more along with the whole load of adversities piling up in shaky, precarious towers that projected their shadows to the ultimately illuminated corners of his soul.

Failing. Failing always. That was him.

And now he was slowly realizing, much to his own rising anger, that he could not even hope for it being cancer or a neurodegenerative disease, something which would put a merciful end to his life. He was hit by that awareness when he slided out of the MRI tube, grabbed his cane and painfully limped to the control room, where he slipped into his shirt and jeans before staring wide-eyed at the high-definition monitor. Eyes fixed into a picture of his brain, he slowly crumpled into the chair, flashed by a hit-and-run need to _stay alive_. Whatever the reason for it, from masochism to the pure and wishful innocence of those who still think the best is yet to come, Gregory House did not want to die.

Secondarily, he realized he needed a blood sample.

* * *

><p>September 19th, 2014<p>

–

10AM

Taub slammed the door to the conference room open.

"We have the results."

He approached the table and grabbed the backrest of an empty chair, pulling it aside. He tossed the sheet onto the table, and everyone could see the printed numbers and letters.

Taub went on.

"Fluid's clear, colorless, and seemingly intact. Cell count revealed no presence of red blood cells whatsoever, and white blood cells, glucose and proteins are normal. Everything's normal. It's not encephalitis."

The room went silent.

Thirteen threw a glance to the doorframe, where House had materialized. He leaned against the door handle.

"Where's Cuddy?"

The team exchanged significant looks. Chase stood up and grabbed the patient file.

"Not..._here_?"

House seemed relieved, but the expression depicted on his face lasted for the fraction of a second.

"So. Foreman tortured a kid just to find out he's perfectly fine." He crossed his arms, shaking his head condescendingly. "Mom's always right. You should listen more often."

No one spoke. Tim could be having a hard time recovering from streptococcus: whatever secondary bacterial infection he had caught at school could have triggered the fever and seizures. But no one still believed that story, since it was now two weeks and the little boy had developed nausea and fatigue.

Foreman reached Chase at the doorframe. They stood in front of House, who was actually blocking their way out. He seemed thoughtful, eyes fixed to the ground. Then he raised his stare up to the two men.

"Have you checked his urines?"

–

"Tim? Baby, wake up..."

Cuddy stroked Tim's pale cheek. He opened his eyes and flashed a glance around.

Chase sat down beside him, raising a smile. He had always liked House's kid.

"How do you do?"

Tim's eyes filled with tears.

"I'm okay." He whispered.

Cuddy glanced at Chase, who bent over.

"Great then. But what about..." He took a small plastic cup from the cart beside him and dropped a tiny white pill in it. Then he went for the nightstand and poured water in a glass.

Tim had attentively watched the whole process.

"What is it?"

"A present."

The little boy giggled.

"It's not a pwesent! It's a pill. Wanna know what it does."

Chase helped him take the medicine.

"You will see. But don't tell anyone."

"Why?"

"Because it's a secret pill. You deserved it after this morning. That needle was pretty huge, wasn't it. But you were very, very brave."

Time stared up at his mother, proudly. Then again, he sat back, his sincere smile gone, blue irises hidden behind his eyelids. He wasn't telling them he had a headache from the lumbar puncture. Very brave, very enduring, very House-ish. He turned to Chase, slowly.

"Doctor?"

"Yep."

"My head hurts."

Finally. Chase and Cuddy exchanged looks. She bent over.

"We know. It's for the puncture."

"You make it go away, mom?"

"Absolutely. Remember doctor Chase's magic pill?"

Tim's features relaxed as he lied silently for a couple minutes, slowly breathing in and out.

But then the little boy sat up, staring at Chase, eyes wide open.

"It's gone! Mom, it's gone!"

Cuddy smiled. Chase and his magic pill had defeated Tim's stubbornness.

Now, the only problem was that he had not peed for more than twice the normal interval and Chase knew they had to figure out why. He took the catheter bag with him and called a nurse to replace it.

House was right.

–

4PM

The lab was silent. Everyone was waiting for Thirteen's eyes to rise up from a silver Nikon microscope. House was nowhere to be seen.

"He's had streptococcus and his kidneys are shutting down." Foreman was pacing the room, hands entwined behind his back. "It may be glomerulonephritis."

Thirteen maneuvered the small black knob at the right side of the microscope to adjust fine focus and addressed her colleagues without leaving the eyepiece.

"I can't see a damn here." She mumbled. Once again, she moved the stage controls, trying to get a better view at the urine sample.

Foreman stopped by her chair and placed a hand on the backrest.

"It may be Minimal Change Disease from streptococcus infection. Let me see."

She moved. Foreman bent over, screwing his eyes as he stared into the eyepiece. He went on with his theory, while Taub and Chase approached.

"About eighty percent of the total cases of MCD are found in children. It's the most common cause of nephrotic syndrome in kids his age." He sat up and turned to his colleagues. "And it would explain why we can't see anything on light microscopy."

Taub looked rather unconvinced.

"He doesn't have hypercholesterolemia, nor edema whatsoever. MCD is just your way of pretending that what you _can't_ see under the microscope makes sense."

"Then what is your idea?" Foreman stood up and went for the door. "I'm calling the fifth floor to see if they have the urine panel already _and_ _then_ I'm coming back to watch the sample under an electron microscope. You can sit here wondering or tell Cuddy we're gonna give him Prednisone. _And where the hell is House_?"

But then he dashed out, without leaving anyone the time to even put an answer together.

–

"How is this even possible..."

Cuddy was pacing the carpeted floor of her office, hands on her forehead.

Chase stood there wordlessly, considering the odds of having a child with seizures caused by a fever caused by an unrelated infection caught at school, while the after effects of a stupid streptococcus no one was worrying about were eating away at the kidneys. The kid was pretty damn unlucky.

"Foreman rushed up to the fifth floor to get the complete urine panel. We couldn't see anything in simple light microscopy, so he suspected..."

"...He _suspected_?"

Cuddy stopped pacing and turned back to Chase.

"Are you telling me you're not sure of this?"

"We need to have a look at the sample under an electron micrograph, but we're gonna have to give him Prednisone soon..."

"You won't give steroids to my son until you slam a sheet on my desk attesting that there's protein in his urine, too much cholesterol in his blood and water in his body. _Are we clear_?"

Cuddy's eyes pierced Chase's. She didn't even look like the mother of the patient. She was back to her old, reassuring bossy-self and Chase was pretty sure that it was one of the many benefits of not having her around during differentials anymore. She was doing her best to be a good doctor to her child, without giving in to the tempting possibility of participating in the diagnostic process. Her duty was to supervise House's crazy procedures, to offer a rational counterpart to his theories: doing that with her son lying in bed on the upper floor was eating away at her sanity, but she knew she had to hold on. She knew she had to let House find the answer. Cuddy brought her hands to her hips, hit by another realization.

"Where's House?"

Chase couldn't answer. His beeper went off alongside Cuddy's, as Foreman, whose beeper had started flailing in his pocket as well, cracked the door open just to announce there was no protein leakage whatsoever, and that they were wrong. Again.

They dashed out, headed to the little boy's room.

As Cuddy rushed in, she found a nurse bent over beside an asleep Tim, whose chest was covered in purple bruising.

Chase and Foreman exchanged looks. They needed House.

–

7PM

Thirteen found House coming out of exam room one, unrolling the right sleeve of his blue shirt, eyes fixed onto his arm.

"What are you doing here?"

He froze and stared up at her.

"Nothing."

Her unconvinced expression. God, that was annoying.

"Okay, I had to perform a vaginal exam. She thought she could stuff in there more than a Tampax at once. How stupid."

They went to the elevators, with a thoughtful Thirteen wordlessly walking beside her unbearably guarded boss. House frowned.

"That was it. You wanted to know..."

Thirteen pierced him with her stare, without the shadow of a smile turning upwards the corners of her lips.

"And you told me. That is what I'm concerned about."

House escaped eye-contact. She was onto something. He needed to get out that conversation as soon as he could.

"House, I can see the awkwardness with Cuddy. I can accept you being all detached by the fact that we have your offspring seizing upstairs."

"I'm pretty sure there's a _but_ coming..."

"But I can't see why you're playing hide-and-seek with us. You like the puzzle. Why not this time?"

House turned to her and considered the benefits of a revelation putting a merciful end to that conversation. Thirteen was a good keeper, and he could have easily dropped a bit of the load he had forced himself to carry alone. But then he just felt like it was none of anyone's business.

The elevator door opened. They sneaked in.

No way anyone would know that he had just drawn his own blood to get it analyzed. He needed an answer. Without that, diagnosing his child could result in the most unforgivable mistake of his whole life. And that was why he was trying his best to stay out of it.

* * *

><p>an: okay, loooong chapter this time (for my standards). I hope you can bear the whole diagnostic process, I've tried to fill it in with juicy emo thoughts by House, witty talk between Foreman and the team, and a small dose of bossy-but-concerned-Cuddy-in-denial. The medicine would be real, but I'm no doctor, so the hours spent researching do not compensate for the years real docs spend studying. That is why I apologize to all the competent people reading this. I do my best with the tools I have. :)

Spoiler for the upcoming chapter: Tim's kidneys will shut down completely. House has not cancer (too lame, uh? Wait to see what he actually _has_) and something big between him and Tim is going to happen, which will result in a huge fight and an even huger ethical puzzle between House and Cuddy. Angst your way, guys.

This chapter has a dedication... First, to Iane Casey, who begged me to be spoiled on my plans for the story. I am strong baby. You will enjoy this with the suspense it deserves :)))

Second, to BackToTheStart, because Redemption is a beautiful story, which is keeping me glued to the screen, and whose author deserves the best of luck with :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

–

_Prelude_

* * *

><p>September 21st, 2014<p>

–

10AM

"It's TTP."

"No, it's not."

"He's got a purple rash all over his chest."

"Foreman is right, we need to put him on plasmapheresis."

The team was debating, everyone focused on their own copy of Tim's file. It was bad, and everyone knew it. Thirteen stood up, hands on her hips. She flashed a piercing look at Taub: he was never with Foreman in anything. Why now? She grabbed the chart from the glass table, surfing through it, then she glanced back at each one of them.

"He's too young for TTP."

Foreman furrowed his brows.

"Since when do you care about high percentages? We do not deal with anything common here."

Thirteen frowned. The tension was palpable, and they were all feeling uncomfortable standing there, discussing something they thought they could recognize and treat easily and then had revealed as elusive and life-threatening for a little boy who also happened to be their bosses' child. She hissed back at Foreman.

"Kidney failure is rare in TTP, and we should see multiple organ involvement. It's only the kidneys here."

"The lab confirmed the presence of fragmented red blood cells in his urine along with elevated LDH, not to mention low platelets. Do we need anything else to confirm it's TTP?"

As Foreman slammed his file on the table, the team went silent for a couple of minutes. Then, Chase stood up. He had been quiet until then, and in all honesty he didn't think TTP was the best fit. But he took over House's missing role and went for the door.

"I don't care, I'm putting him on plasmapheresis before we have to do an autopsy. You can go on debating."

He dashed out. Thirteen plopped down on the chair, holding the patient file to her chest.

Taub and Foreman walked out, leaving her alone facing both an empty whiteboard and her own doubts about the diagnosis and about an elusive, guarded House, whose behavior was bugging her more than ever.

–

1PM

House flashed a look around. He was getting nervous, as he could see no sign of his blood panel being back from the lab. Again, he checked the codes on the small white tags linking the hard-covered blue files back to real people. Patient _az14h_ was nowhere to be seen. House popped some more Vicodin.

"Doctor House, may I help you?"

He turned back, just to see nurse Brenda approaching him with her nice smile, shortly followed by another, younger colleague. Somehow, he could not think of a smartass-kind-of reply, so he just stood there.

"Are you looking for a patient?"

He shook his head, feeling more and more uncomfortable.

"No... Well, yes. But the file's not back anyway."

He made as if to sidestep nurse Brenda, but he almost tripped on some invisible wire, managing to stay on his feet just thanks to the cane. _How pathetic._

Brenda grabbed House's biceps, sustaining him.

"Doctor House! Are you okay?"

_Crap_.

House pulled away.

"Yeah."

"It certainly doesn't seem so."

"I'm fine. The seizing girl behind you, though..."

Brenda abruptly turned to the clinic patients. The waiting room was quietly _waiting_. When she turned back to House, he was already gone.

–

He checked at least twice. The hallway was empty and silent: so much for being so busy they couldn't retrieve a damn blood test in two days. House went for the third door to the left and again he flashed a glance to the elevator doors, stairwell and balcony. No one was around. And the door was locked, _of course._

Five minutes later, he slided down to the floor, leaned against the cold wall of the same corridor he seemed to be stuck in, incapable of picking the lock. Breaking into a genetic testing lab was nowhere as easy as he thought: those bio-nerds seemingly knew their stuff. He tilted his head back to the tiled wall, closing his eyes. What now?

He needed that blood test to be back. Desperately. For the first time in his whole post-infarct life, House could recognize the fear of not knowing: the answer he needed was locked somewhere in that dark room, no one being concerned about his need to look at it. He brought his hands to his forehead, where the pulsating blood vessels seemed to be about to explode, once again putting the strains on his ability to think clearly, as if he was back in that hospital bed, with Stacy patting his cheeks with wet towels, while he screamed and tossed and turned, panic-stricken, incapable of getting control over his own body in utter pain. Except from the fact that ages seemed to separate those desperate times from that moment: he had gone through hell and back, he had lived just to make more mistakes, piling them up until he had ended up being institutionalized. And then he had come out of it once more, he had tried to get everything back. He had been about to give it up to the cruelty of a world which had not waited for him to be ready and had gone ahead without him. But then again, Cuddy had come to take his hand and lead the way back to salvation.

Just to leave him in the dark, framed in the shape of his door like a picture you rip in a half and throw in the fire. Framed in a life he did not want back. Not this time. Not now that he had savored the sweetness of her lips, the silky texture of her skin, the deepness of her stare fixed in his, fearless, strong, real.

That was how far he had gone from those sweaty blankets which had witnessed the craziest of House's decisions. Seated on the cold floor, House realized how much he hated the sunken muscle in his right thigh. Hitting it with his fist clenched, he released a hollow laugh. Alongside pain, darkness came.

–

5PM

"House. Wake up."

Wilson's voice. Coming from a thousand miles away. Wilson calling him back to the world of the living, where everything hurt. He pretended he was still unconscious.

"House, I know you're back."

Of course he knew. House could hear the beeping noise of the EEG appliance piercing his ears: that could not lie to anyone. The lights hanging from the ceiling stabbed his eyes.

"'Should have skipped breakfast."

He made as if to sat up, but a sudden dizziness forced him to fall back onto the pillows.

"House, listen..."

_For the life of him_. Wilson's face and tone and attitude were starting to give House the creeps. He breathed out, slowly.

"What."

"Look, I'm sorry... I should have noticed..."

"If you're here to punish yourself, shut up. My head hurts."

"I... I know."

"Then shut-_the hell_-up, Wilson. It's easy."

House's voice was nothing more than a whisper slipping out of his mouth. He turned his head aside, trying to think of a strategy to get Wilson out of his way, sneak outside and finish what he had interrupted outside the lab. There had to be a way to break into the damn place.

Wilson flashed a look at his friend and tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

"I know what you were doing."

House abruptly turned back to Wilson, fighting the giddiness. He stared at his friend, wide-eyed.

"What?"

Wilson pulled a chair up to House's bed and sat down. He grabbed his file.

"It's a genetic test, House. It needs time. That's why you hadn't gotten it back yet."

_Oh, crap_. He'd been busted. Escaping eye-contact, House couldn't help but lie there, wordlessly. Wilson went ahead.

"They found you lying on the floor, and they called me, and... How could you hide this to me?"

"Get to the point. Am I grounded?"

"Shut up, House. You're an ass. And I've found your MRI scans."

Now, that was so wrong. In so many ways. House felt trapped: there was no way he could have gotten out of it without Wilson hunting him down at every corner.

"It's nothing. I just... It was probably scar tissue from the crazy procedure you had me undergo a bunch of years ago. Remember?"

Wilson had to focus on the file not to jump to his feet and yell at him to shut up and listen. It was going to be a long, long day.

"It wasn't scar tissue."

That came out on its own. House froze.

"You were onto something. And... House, we performed a skin biopsy. It was faster than the blood test."

Now there was only silence, rhythmically broken by the ticking of the wall clock hanging from above the doorframe in front of House's bed. He fixed his stare onto the second hand, following its obsessive dance around the numbers repeating themselves endlessly. There was no need of jumping out of bed to break into the fifth floor laboratory now. His answer lied in Wilson's eyes, getting unwillingly misty.

"We found abnormal collections of granular osmiophilic material. The changes in the blood vessels were characteristic of..."

"I know."

"Of course you do."

"Does Cuddy know?"

"No."

"Then keep your mouth shut."

Wilson dropped the file on the blankets and stood up. With a broken look, he walked to the door, slamming it closed as he got out of House's sight.

He now had his answer and it was floating midair before his eyes, as if it had some kind of material consistency. Of course he was right. He was so right he felt almost satisfied with his intuition, regardless of everything. He was right from the first time he had let his stare pierce the spots on the MRI scan, which revealed multiple white matter lesions in the temporal lobes of his brain.

House sat up and found his cane leaned against the nightstand. He slipped into his Nikes and limped tiredly to the door. Thank god Wilson had had no time to trap him in a hospital gown. Feeling scared and scared as he made his way from the ER to the upper floor, House didn't even care about his own diagnosis as much as he was afraid he could find it in his son's body.

–

"Hi."

Tim was asleep. He awoke at the sound of House's cane tapping on the floor.

"Hi."

House pulled a stool up to the bedside. Tim was pale and his blue, attentively looking eyes popped out of his face.

"Where's your mom?"

"Went to pick Wachel fwom school. Who are you?"

_Nice._ Interrogation from a three year-old.

"I'm doctor House."

"_House_..."

Tim giggled.

House sat down on the stool, his expression unwillingly revealing some kind of a never experienced concern.

"...You sad?"

_Shut up, kid._

"No."

House pulled a small syringe from the left pocket of his jacket and stuck the needle into Tim's right arm.

"Just a pinch."

"Okay."

He turned to the cart and pulled a small scalpel. When he turned back to Tim, their gazes met for the first time. He felt like he owed him some kind of explanation.

"I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with you."

Tim didn't reply. He kept piercing House with that crystalline stare of his. He didn't even notice the cut and his own blood spotting the towel placed underneath his tiny arm. House placed the sample on a slide and closed it up, placing it on the cart. When he turned back, Tim was still looking at him.

"I'm scawed."

He was on the verge of tears. House took a breath.

"I know."

Tim stared at him, eyes wide open.

"Mom said not to..."

"I know that too."

"Mom said it won't hurt, and then it hurts."

House closed his eyes, words coming out on their whispery own.

"She always does that."

Tim sat up.

"You know my mommy?"

_Get out. Get out now_. He was glued to the stool.

"Yes."

"She cwies a lot. At night."

"I'm sure she does."

"She scawed?"

"Probably."

"I am."

"Me too."

Tim looked surprised.

"You sick too?"

"Kind of."

"You don't seem so. You're weawing clothes."

House couldn't help but smile.

"I've just run away."

"Cool."

"Totally."

"Doctor House?"

"Yeah."

"What if I die."

House raised his stare, screwing his eyes.

"How old are you?"

"Thwee."

"You seem older."

"You too."

"You shouldn't think of..."

"I'm scawed. Die hurts?"

"I don't know."

"Mom doesn't want to talk of it."

"Your mom wants everyone to be happy."

"I'm happy."

Tim raised a smile. House stood up.

"Sure you are."

The little boy seemed tired as he fell back onto the pillows, closing his eyes.

"I like you." He whispered, and then he was asleep.

House froze there, watching Tim's sleep peacefully, forgetful of his momentary fears: the nightmares of a sick three year-old, despite scary, didn't last long. House desperately wished Tim could really erase everything he had heard from his mind: this time, being his frankly-speaking self had been a torture to himself. Tim was surprisingly clever, and he knew he was very sick: House couldn't care less of his own business now. He timidly reached out and touched the little boy's forehead. Chills went down his spine. A part of him lied in bed, facing death. For the first time ever, House felt something at the thought of Tim's presence in the world. He approached and bent over, checking his features, trying to find himself and the woman he loved in the face of this sick child they had given life to, the weight of his own mistakes hitting him like a punch in the stomach alongside the astonishment of the realization.

When he turned back to the room entrance, Cuddy stood in the doorframe, tears streaming down her cheeks, the shadow of a smile hidden behind the concern in her eyes. Grabbing his cane, House limped out of the room without a word being spoken nor a look being exchanged between the two of them.

* * *

><p>AN: let's see if I manage to finish up this story without you guys killing me. What do you think?


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

–

_Fix You_

* * *

><p>September 22nd, 2014<p>

–

9AM

Someone knocked at Wilson's door, making him startle. He raised his stare to the entrance of his silent office.

"Come in,"

House limped in, tiredly slamming his cane onto the coffee table. Eventually, he plopped down on the black leathered couch. Wilson hung up the receiver he was still holding midair and closed the laptop. He took a deep breath.

"Glad you're still here, House. I thought you were about to end your days drowning yourself in piňa coladas on some fancy beach."

House tilted his head back.

"Shut up. I am not gonna die," But he could not help noticing the sudden sadness filling his friend's eyes. "Not right now, I mean."

Wilson sat back, arms crossed.

"If you want to talk about it..."

"I don't."

"Come on. There is no need to deflect your way to opening up. It's kind of paradoxical. And it drains my energies."

House frowned.

"Cut the crap, Wilson. You desperately want this to be _your_ problem. But hey, it's _my_ problem. Surprise." He released a hollow laugh.

"I am just trying to be a friend. You know, people standing by each other."

Wilson brought both hands to his face, massaging his forehead. Trying to hide the mixture of concern for House and annoyance at his behavior which showed through his expression, he just went silent. If House did not want to share, then he had nothing to say: he was already having a hard time processing what had just happened, and he could not decipher House's thoughts, as no sign of the slightest feeling betrayed his blue irises.

Suddenly, Wilson came back to reality. He jolted on his feet.

"We have to tell Cuddy... We need to test Tim."

House did not move.

"For god's sake, House. You can't _possibly_ avoid..."

House's expression was icy-cold.

"I've already tested him."

Wilson froze, staring at his friend.

"You did _what_?"

House stood up. He'd had enough of his friend's broken, wide-eyed looks.

"Skin biopsy, as you suggested."

"I thought you hadn't told Cuddy yet."

"I haven't."

Wilson shook his head as much slowly as incredulously, opening his mouth as if to say something, but then he ended up swallowing air. House raised his stare.

"Okay, I might have performed a medical procedure on a minor without getting the mother's consent. You won't send your death-sentenced friend to jail for that. You'd die from guilt."

"I can't believe it." Wilson started pacing the room. Then, he abruptly stopped and turned back at House, hands on his hips, rage boiling from some hidden corner of his heart all the way up to his throat, filling his lungs in place of air. House spread his arms.

"Look, I'm his doctor. It's not that I've kidnapped him or anything."

Wilson approached him, his words coming out in a low, painful hiss.

"You are the most incredibly selfish son of a bitch I've _ever.._."

"What are you talking about?"

"Shut _up_, House. Shut. _The hell._ Up. You are crapping your pants in terror, but you're too much of a coward, too much of an ass to even _consider_..."

House's stare was fixed into Wilson's. Despite his incredulous, destroyed expression, Wilson could not simply stop. For the first time in ages, he felt the sense of freedom lashing out was giving him. For the first time in ages, his concern was not for the sick man standing in front of him as much as it was directed to the sick child lying in their ICU.

"What if he's sick too? You're gonna go and tell Cuddy you were hiding from her?"

"I don't..."

"No, House. You don't get an excuse this time. You don't get to be sorry, to feel guilty, to look at me this way. You don't get anything. I don't even wanna tell Cuddy what you did. I am so out of you guys' craziness, this time. _You_ need to piece this together."

House's calm voice could not come out sadder.

"I know."

Wilson turned to the window, in a desperate attempt to avoid his friend's eyes. He could not bear the sense of compassion and the utter, painful anger House's behavior made him feel. That was too much even for the best friend in the world. He hissed back at the man standing behind him, grateful he was not looking him in the eye.

"Then, find the _decency_ of helping out your team with the case, figure out what's wrong with your offspring and then go drown yourself in pain medications until it's mercifully over. If you're lucky, it won't be long."

House stood there for a second, frozen motionless. Then, he slowly, tiredly turned back and limped his way to the door. He knew that his brain would have suffered many unnoticed ischemic attacks during the course of the years, which would eat away at his cognitive abilities one by one. His father had been lucky his whole life until the end, getting a heart attack that had killed him in a few minutes: he, House, had not. And that same fear torturing him about his own destiny had kept him in a choke-hold as he cut his son's arm to get a skin sample.  
>Wilson was right. He had performed Tim's skin biopsy out of the sudden fear of having passed an autosomal dominant hereditary disease down to a child he had never even wanted. The mere thought of his sick son facing death because of him had made him act impulsively. When his own father had died, years before, one less person was left not accepting House as what he was: House did not want to have someone to disappoint as his father had disappointed him. He had been his personal failure, he was his never ceasing regret, the secret consciousness of not being blood-tied with him and still wanting the best for him, somehow not succeeding at accepting his many oddities: John House had disappointed his son because he was not able to accept he could make his own choices despite him disapproving of them. House knew that from the looks he would get from the man: painful, broken glares of consciousness that he hadn't succeeded in anything else than his job. His father knew that better than anyone else when he flashed quick, disapproving looks at his cane, his sad expression, his noticeable limp and the emptiness of his house, during the more-than-rare visits his parents paid to him.<p>

House realized he didn't even know what to think of his first encounter with Tim: a part of him had been scared of looking at a younger version of his screwed-up self; but all he had seen in Tim's blue irises was an uncommon intelligence, mixed with an attentive sensitivity to every detail life put before his young eyes. The little boy was only three years old, but he could somehow grasp what lied hidden behind the curtain adults cover their fears and hopes with. Or perhaps it was especially that ability that came from his youngest age. Tim was part of a world that remained concealed to the grown-ups, due to the fact that most of the children his age could not yet engage in meaningful exchanges with the people surrounding them. But Tim was different in his curiosity: he had the rare intelligence allowing him to ask the right questions and the language abilities supporting his understanding of the answers the world would give him.

House could not say he was genetically programmed to love his offspring: it could even be, but such things need their time and a proximity he had consciously refused, scared of poisoning the only purity remaining from the consummation eating away at every good thing he had ever done in life.

Coming back to the present, House realized he was still standing in Wilson's doorframe, his right hand wrapped around the handle. He turned back just to see a heartbroken Wilson massaging his temples, staring into the closed laptop on his desk. When he noticed he was being pierced by House's eyes, their gazes met. Wilson instantly knew he could not restrain the tears burning his eyelids from behind.

"Look, House..." He stopped, a lump blocking his throat.

House's features relaxed.

"I know. It's not your fault."

"I just... I'm so sorry."

"So, you don't want me to die anymore."

"I don't."

"But I will, eventually."

"I know."

It was House's turn to swallow back the tears. He took a breath.

"The kid's biopsy came back negative."

Wilson jumped to his feet, as House raised a smile.

"Cuddy and I got lucky that night. Well, I got lucky, actually. All she did was lie there and moan loudly."

"Shut up, I don't wanna hear that story..."

"Too bad. I think I've even got a video somewhere..."

"House!" Wilson leaned against the backrest, finally relaxing.

House smirked.

"Wilson."

"Yeah?"

"One day, this'll be over."

"I know. I'll miss it."

Suddenly, House's smile faded away. He flashed a look at his friend and limped out.

–

2PM

"Mom?" Rachel stared up at her mother, seating beside her on the couch facing Tim's bed. The little boy was asleep. "Mom, are you okay?"

Cuddy lowered her stare.

"Sure, baby."

"You look sad."

"Tim's sick. I am worried for him. Aren't you?"

"Yup. Mom?"

"Yes."

"How bad is it?"

"It's..." Cuddy took a breath and fixed her gaze into her daughter's. "It's pretty bad, honey."

Rachel flashed a glance at her brother and then looked back at Cuddy.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"But you're a doctor."

Cuddy tided her head back and met the cold glass panel separating the room from the ICU corridor. She closed her eyes.

"Doctors know what's wrong. We don't always know why."

Rachel was silent for a couple seconds. Then she sat up.

"House always knows."

Cuddy found herself staring at her daughter, eyes wide open.

"What are you talking about, baby?"

"House. He always knows what's wrong with people."

"How do you know?"

"When he calls you at night, you get dressed and come here."

Cuddy could not help but smile at herself.

"That's because he's crazy."

Rachel giggled.

"Is he?"

"Yes. But he's..." Cuddy took a breath, her tone lowering and softening. "He's the most incredible man I've ever known. He will always be."

Rachel's voice came out in a whisper.

"I hope House can fix Timmy."

Cuddy stroked her daughter's cheek.

"You like House?"

"Yup. Hw was cool. He always listened to me when I sang the Stones."

"I'm sure he likes you as well."

"Then why is he gone?"

Cuddy's expression saddened.

"Because... House is sick."

Rachel turned to her, wide-eyed.

"Really? He seems okay."

"I know. He's... sick in his heart, baby."

"Can you fix him?"

"I've tried, Rachel." Cuddy took the little girl's head in her lap, and repeated her own words to herself. "_I've tried_."

* * *

><p>an: guys, I need to thank everyone for the AMAZING reviews I've received lately. Keep it up :) Next chapter we're going to figure out Tim's diagnosis and House's illness will have a name, finally; plus, there will be some serious H/Cu. Get ready and buckle up.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

–

_Guiding light_

* * *

><p>September 23rd, 2014<p>

–

2.30AM

House lied awake, staring up at the moving fan hanging from the ceiling. He was hypnotized by the shadows it projected onto the walls. From now and then, he could hear a car speeding down the road, breaking the silence which reigned over his tormented thoughts. What was wrong with that child was still a mystery to him. He grabbed his cellphone from the nightstand.

"Wilson."

"House."

"'Talk to me."

"Mh?"

"Talk to me. About anything."

"House...do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah. 'Been clubbing all night, forgot about the diagnosis..."

"Shut up. I'll see you later in the morning. We'll talk."

"No, wait."

"What."

"Just say something. I'll figure out what to do with it."

"Are you crazy? Oh, wait. I know the answer."

"See? I knew you couldn't stay away." House smirked at himself.

"Stop being obnoxious. Go to sleep. Or stay up all night trying to figure out what's wrong with your nerdy child _alone_. We're lucky he's only got the good genes from you, for god's sake..."

House hung up the receiver, leaving a puzzled Wilson in the dark of his own bedroom, on the opposite side of Princeton.

–

8AM

"What the hell, House. I went home less than five hours ago..."

Chase staggered in, tossing his jacket and an empty plastic cup onto the table. He plopped down on the nearest chair, yawning.

House stood there in silence, holding midair a black ink marker.

"Where is everybody?"

"I don't know. Trying to get out of bed after your emergency call?"

Foreman, Thirteen and Taub came in.

"Good morning, you incompetent idiots..." House crossed his arms, piercing each one of them with a penetrating blue glance, which left them wondering what they had done wrong this time.

Foreman sat down at the conference table.

"So, what is it?"

House turned to the whiteboard.

_Acute renal insufficiency._

Thirteen checked Tim's file, looking for the lab results. She froze there, staring at them eyes wide open.

"House is right," She whispered.

"Thanks. Of course I already knew that, but still..."

House approached the conference table and threw the marker onto the glass panel. He bent over, flashing glances at each one of them.

"TTP is inconsistent with such a degree of acute kidney failure."

Taub went for the urine panel.

"He's had streptococcus. It could still be Glomerulonephritis..."

House stood back up, crossing his arms.

"This is why I tested his blood while you were drooling your way to a new dawn..."

He could not finish his sentence. At that exact, same moment, Cuddy busted the door open. She froze in the doorway, looking at them in silence.

Foreman stood up.

"You should be with Tim. We're taking care of everything."

She didn't move. Foreman approached her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Cuddy, we don't kn..."

"_We know_."

Everybody turned to House, whose voice had just come out as firm as they couldn't remember it being in years.

Cuddy left Foreman's hold and slowly approached House. Their gazes met. He took a breath, trying to control the dizziness her proximity and the migraine were giving him.

"It's Atypical Hemolytic-uremic Syndrome."

Everyone stood there, motionless. Cuddy leaned against the backrest of the nearest chair, her free hand covering her mouth, eyes filling with tears. House felt a rush of blood invading his face, warming his cheeks and hands. Foreman, Thirteen, Chase and Taub were still looking at him wordlessly. He went ahead.

"The lab results came back thirty minutes ago, thanks to my money and a guy named something. Genetic testing found a CFH mutation which is consistent with fH-deficient Atypical HUS. Put him on dialysis and hope for the best, or either find a kidney donor somewhere."

House grabbed his backpack and slipped into his leather jacket. Without another word elapsing from his lips, he walked out, slamming the glass door closed behind him.

–

"House!"

_For heaven's sake. Go be with your kid._

House quit walking. He stopped where he was, gaze fixed to the floor, without turning back to where the voice calling him came from.

"House..."

Cuddy quickened her pace, finally reaching him. She walked past him and stood there.

"House, please. Talk to me."

He slowly raised his stare.

"What."

"Just..." She bit her lower lip. "Thank you."

"I've just done my job."

"I... I know. I know it should have been hard for you to..."

"Yeah. See you tomorrow."

House sidestepped her, limping his tired way to the automatic doors. He was almost there. Outside, the rain was pouring from a gray, opaque blanket of thick clouds. He breathed out in relief as he was leaving the hospital. He just wanted to collapse onto his couch and get the longest sleep in his life, trying to forget about everything that had happened in the last few weeks. Trying to forget he would have died a slow death, depriving him of his dignity day by day for the years to come. He desperately wished he could only focus on the fact that his child would live, that he had been able to save his last patient, the one whose existence he had never cared about. Until now.

House realized he was already soaked. In vain he tried to pull an umbrella from his backpack, as he had not taken it while dashing out of his apartment at three in the morning. Not that he could run to the parking lot or anything: he kept limping his way home as calmly as he could, savoring the smell of the rain on the grass and the leaves of the deserted hospital park.

"I knew it."

House froze at the sound of Cuddy's voice echoing behind him. He turned back and saw her standing in front of him once again, raindrops falling from her loose curls, wetting her shirt, face, lips.

"What the..."

"I knew it, House."

"Look, I..."

"Shut up."

The violence in her words left him speechless in surprise. She approached, their eyes were just inches apart. Hissing at him, she went ahead.

"I should have realized..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I thought you were scared..." Tears of anger and disappointment began streaming down her cheeks, melting at the contact with her skin together with the raindrops falling from the sky. "I thought you were dismissing your own feelings for some reason..."

House seemed to understand where she was headed. He closed his eyes, ready to get hit by her words. She raised her stare up to the darkening sky, and then back down to him.

"But I can see it now. I see _you_, House. I always have. _You do not feel anything_." She turned from him, hands on her hips, pacing the cobblestone path. "You are a cold, heartless son of a bitch. Your son, our... our son is sick and you don't even consider..."

_Stop, Cuddy. Stop here and now or you'll regret it forever._

She went ahead.

"He almost died." Her voice broke for a second. She swallowed back the tears. "What if dialysis doesn't work?"

"It will."

"You don't know. You _don't_. _No-one-does_."

"Look, aHUS can have recurrences without a kidney transplant, but in most cases..."

"..._In most cases_? How _dare_ you..." She hit him on the chest with her opened palm, making him step back. "How dare you talk to me this way? How many times..." She took a breath. "How many times have we been fighting over some crazy, unnecessary procedure..."

"Don't do this."

"No, House. I am doing it right now. I am asking you, how many times have you forced me to approve your course of treatment even though I said '_in most cases_' something less crazy could work? And now, _now_ you're telling me..."

"Listen, I can't..."

She turned from him once more, bringing both hands to her face. Only the pouring rain could break the silence between them. Then again, she turned back at him.

"I'd never, _never_ ask you to do this."

House escaped eye-contact. He could see it clearly now. She thought he was being selfish, trying to deal with that case as he would have done with any other, not considering that the deadly-ill patient was their child. But he could not do what she was about to ask, and that was just a fact. Cuddy's words elapsed frantically from her lips, as she approached him, shortening the distance between them at every breath they took. Before he could do anything, they were facing each other _again_, only inches apart.

"House. I will never ask anything else from you. We will disappear from your life, you will never hear from us again. I promise."

"I can't."

"What if we can't keep his kidneys functional with dialysis?"

"_Then_ we'll go for a transplant. Not now."

Cuddy's words came out slowly. They were nothing more than a whisper.

"_What if I am not compatible._"

He fixed his gaze into hers.

"He'll be listed. Someone will come."

"Let's say..."

"No."

"House..."

"I can't."

"No. You don't..." Cuddy hesitated. "You don't _care_."

"That's not..."

"You don't care. You never have. You don't _fucking..._"

"I AM DYING!"

She froze, her mouth opened and closed as if she was trying to speak. They stood motionless, silently listening to the pouring rain all around them.

"Wh...what?"

House stared down at her, and she could see his broken, desperate blue irises piercing hers. He lowered his voice, trying to sound as cold as he could.

"I'm sick, Cuddy. That's it. I don't know how you could even consider the kidney of his drug-addict father being suitable for your kid, but let alone this... I am sick."

She shook her head, slowly.

"What are you talking about?"

"I can't do anything for him. Dialysis will work, there is no need for you to be irrational. We caught it in time."

"I'm scared."

"I know. I _swear_ to you that I'll find a way to put him at the top of the list if it's neces..."

But he could not finish his sentence, as he found her lips touching his with the intensity that was only part of his dreams, the ones where he truly, painfully believed they were back to the times when nothing hurt, when he hadn't made his most unforgivable mistake, when she still thought he had changed enough to stand up for her. He kissed her back, incapable of restraining his own tears from mixing with hers. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he ran his fingertips onto her wet shirt, savoring the texture of the cottoned fabric covering the tension of her tightening muscles. Cuddy took his face in her hands, as if to protect his tears from the uncontrollable anger of the pouring rain taking over House's despair. When her tongue touched his, she felt chills running down her spine, each and every sensation amplified to the maximum of its power: they kissed for long minutes, taking it all back from their misguided love, trying to make up for all the stolen glances, the unspoken words, the regretful, broken gestures. The wasted years. Then, they quit kissing. House took her hands and pulled them away.

"Cuddy. Stop."

"Why."

"Because this is wrong. For everyone."

She bent over, leaning her forehead against his chest. He did not touch her. He _could_ not touch her, or the whole distance he had tried to establish between them would have been pointless. He would have given in so easily... Standing there, arms stretched out along the sides of his body, trying not to break down in a thousand pieces in front of the woman he loved, House knew he was the loneliest man in the world of the living. Hence, he startled at the sound of his own voice ripping the veil of fog slowly trying to take over his rational mind.

"I've been diagnosed with a hereditary form of leukodystrophy."

She stared at him, incapable of any reaction except from her eyes filling with fear.

"Cuddy... You don't have to worry. Tim is fine, I've tested him already... I..." He hesitated for a moment. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I couldn't."

She lowered her stare to the hopping raindrops hitting the ground.

"You have CADASIL."

"Yes."

Cuddy turned from him, bringing one hand to her forehead.

"I didn't even notice."

"This is not your fault."

They faced each other for an endless, wordless moment. Cuddy could not let go off his crystalline stare, so similar to that of their child: it didn't take her much to make a decision. All of her indestructible theoretical apparatus, the one she had built up to justify their break-up and the subsequent events, crumbled down in a million pieces.

"We have to check your MRI scans. I'll ask Foreman," She started pacing around. "I'm pretty sure he knows someone in Rochester... I've heard of an experimental treatment which slowed down the disease in a pretty high percentage of patients... Tim should be fine in a month or two, if dialysis works. I'll take you to Mayo, we'll..."

House grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn back.

"I... I will die, Cuddy. Years from now. There's no cure for this, nothing you can do for me. You know that."

She raised one hand and stroked his cheek, slowly, tears streaming down her face.

"House..."

He gently took her hand and held it in his.

"We can't go backwards. What I did... What I _am_... This doesn't change it."

She realized what he meant. He thought they'd better stay apart than together. That seemed to her the most senseless idea he could come up with. She raised her stare up to the sky, knowing what she was about to say would have changed her life forever.

"I don't care."

"Come on, we've already been over this."

"I said. _I don't care._" Her features did not betray the slightest sign of uncertainty.

"This is wrong."

"What if it's not."

They went silent.

Then, finally accepting that most decisions just come to you without a warning, House pulled her close and held her to his chest, his gaze fixed ahead into the curtain of fog and rain, finally accepting her back into his screwed-up existence, whose span was shrinking all around him. They stood there in silence, unaware of the fact that they were now fully dipped in what seemed to be a never ending storm. Years of tension dissipated, flowing away with the rain hitting the ground, being slowly absorbed underneath the thirsty blanket of emerald grass. House could not even blink, his stare glued ahead, his mind processing the turn of the latest events while he held her tight, one hand wrapped around her shoulders, the other placed on the back of her head, trying to protect her from the crushing weight of his destiny.

Cuddy was back. In a second, he forgot about the broken promises lingering above them. She had chosen to come back into his ending life: again, she had come to give him a reason to just _be_. This was a one-way ticket to forgiveness.  
>Suddenly, she stared up at him.<p>

"House..."

"Yeah."

"I don't want you to die."

"I know."

Their gazes met. Then, it just happened: the rain calmed down, and the curtain of fog slowly faded away.

"Cuddy."

"What."

"Do you think I could see my child?"

They headed back inside.

* * *

><p>an: hoping everyone is still with me, I want to send a gazillion thanks to those bearing with the characters and their struggle. An even huger load of warm-hearted thanks goes to those who are also wasting five minutes of their time to leave me a review, either here or on Twitter, or via email. Whatever. This means a lot to me, and this is my first story getting over 100 reviews! Not that I compulsively check every minute, but I have to admit that I like being aware of your thoughts on the story. So I encourage you to keep it up, because it really keeps me inspired and my muse healthy. Special thanks to Maya, who took the time to send me a couple of long mails triggering a nice conversation and my curiosity for her stories. Thanks also to Iane Casey, LaurieLuver, PartypantsCuddy and LapizSilkwood for the never ceasing twitter – support. And this is pretty much all, for now. :) See you!


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Come what may

* * *

><p><strong>One year later<strong>

December 22nd, 2015

–

8AM

House cracked the door open. As soon as a slice of light hit the bed where Tim lied asleep, he stood motionless in the doorway, observing the first rays of a wintry, icy-cold morning lingering delicately over his son's features. Then he walked in, trying not to make the slightest noise as he pulled a chair up to Tim's bed. He leaned his cane against the nightstand and slowly sat down.

Tim blinked awake.

"Hi!"

"Hi."

House took a breath and sat back, arms crossed. Tim turned to his side to face him. He pulled the blanket up to his chin.

"House?"

"Mh?"

"I'm sleepy."

"Sorry I woke you up."

"Where's my mom?"

"She's..." House hesitated for a moment. "She's home."

Tim looked puzzled, his blue eyes popping out, piercing House's.

"Why?"

"'Cause..." House raised a slight smile. "She's waiting for you."

Tim sat up, his irises shining.

"Am I going home?"

"Yep. We've had enough of you here, kid."

"Woah!" The little boy started bouncing up and down. House smirked at the sight of the angelical wrecking ball having the time of his life. Tim had been hospitalized for over a year, everyone trying to save the functionality of his still young kidneys, to avoid him a transplant and the subsequent life-changing therapy. They had succeeded, as in the end plasmapheresis and a bit of luck had put the little boy back up on his feet. From that moment on, he had been everyone's shadow, everywhere: each nurse and doctor in the Pediatric ward knew the sound of his crystalline voice echoing out of nowhere while they were not expecting it. Tim would go around asking and watching with a pristine curiosity that had to be the same which had pushed his father through life. Thankfully, as House would realize every now and then, Cuddy's share of genes had made Tim way less obnoxious than him, so that his irresistible halo of cuteness always gave him the answers he was looking for without anyone being pissed at a long-term little patient being practically everywhere. It seemed as if Tim was trying to make up for the months spent in bed, preventing him from parsing each and every aspect of the surrounding world.

House sat silently, watching happiness illuminate his son's features. But then, Tim sat back, shadows saddening his eyes.

"House."

"Yeah."

"I want to go home."

"You are."

Tim blushed.

"I also..."

_Don't do this_. House felt it coming.

"I also want to stay here."

Now, he should have foreseen this. Tim liked the place. His mother was there every day anyway, so he had not felt homesick for a second. Wilson was there. Rachel got there for a couple of hours after school, with Cuddy's mother wandering around the fourth floor just to bitch around. House smirked at Arlene's surprisingly cool reaction at the news of her daughter being back with him. She had played smartypants with a witty comment about screwed-ups being a natural kind, muttering something about her own relief. Then, she had cornered House alone in his office. She had told him something about the unfairness of life, just to hug him a few seconds later. He had to recognize his own positive surprise in appreciating her reaction, although nothing would have ever, ever taken away his embarrassed smile as his full-mouthed mother-in-law was being sweet to him for once in her life.

Anyway, Tim's family, all he knew, was all around him while he was at PPTH. There, he had everything he had at home. Except from something. And House knew that pretty well.

"Look. This is a place for sick people."

"I know."

"You're not sick anymore. You don't need to stay here."

"I know..."

Tim pouted, his eyes filling with tears.

"Then, what is it?"

But House knew what it was. Tim turned from him, curling up underneath the sheets.

"There's you here."

His voice had come up softened by the cotton covering his head and the tears trying to take over. House felt chills down his spine. What had he done to deserve this little boy's affection? He'd been himself for a whole year. No child could like that. Seemingly, _his_ child seemed to.

"Listen." House held out his open hand, reaching at his son's shoulder and causing him to slowly turn back. "Timothy. Listen."

Tim glanced up at him, misty-eyed. House took a breath.

"This is not the place for a kid. I... I know you like it, but it's not your place. Your place is where your mom and sister are. You have to go to school. Play with other kids. Steal cookies."

Tim giggled.

"But..." He stared up at the paper planes hanging from the ceiling. They were hundreds. One for each day he'd been there, after the diagnosis. He did not finish the sentence. House knew where he was headed.

"I know it's scary. I know you like it here... I like it too."

Tim kept piercing him with his stare.

"Can you come see me if I go home?"

House took a breath.

"Yes."

"Gweat then!"

"So, you're good to go?"

Tim nodded. Then, another thought seemed to cross his mind.

"House."

"What."

"My mom is sad."

House was hit by surprise.

"What?"

"She cwied yestehday."

"Look, your mom is happy. You are fine, you'll be home with her soon."

"I asked her why, she said it's okay, don't wowwy."

House escaped eye-contact. He did not think he was ready for that conversation. Not now. He needed to talk to Cuddy. He needed a strategy. He needed a damn getaway from that situation. Still, he felt glued to the chair, incapable of avoiding his own son's questions.

"Listen... I... Your mom and I are... friends. Like, you know..."

"Do you kiss her?"

House startled.

"W-what?"

"Wachel said she kissed a boy once, and then they got mawwied. She said he's her fwiend."

House furrowed his brows, trying to restrain the smirk. _Go Rachel._

"Yes. I kiss her. She is my friend."

"And Wilson?"

"He is my friend too."

"But you don't kiss Wilson."

_For god's sake, kid. I don't kiss Wilson, no._

"I don't."

"Why do you kiss my mom then?"

"Because..." House hesitated. "Because I love her. Like moms and dads."

Bad comparison. Bad, bad idea. Tim did not reply. He was completely drawn into House's words. After a few seconds of silence, his voice came out in a whisper.

"Then why she cwied when you were outside?"

"Did she?"

"Yup."

"When."

"Yesterday. And the other day. And The day befowe. And when I asked her if she kissed you."

"Did you ask her?"

"Suwe! She said don't listen to your sister."

"_Mother superior Cuddy._"

Tim giggled. "What?"

"Nothing."

"House."

"Yeah."

Now that was frankly tiring.

"Why my mom cwies?"

"I think she's afraid of... that we... go away."

"I'm not going."

"I know, kid."

Tim went serious.

"Are you going away."

"I... Yes."

"But House..."

Tim's eyes filled in tears. House immediately regretted his own words. He bent over to the little boy.

"Don't cry, okay? I'm... I'm sorry."

"Don't go House."

He sat back. He thought he could not escape that conversation anymore now. He needed to tell him he was not going to be around for the rest of his life _before_ the boy found out he was his dad. Before he could feel betrayed by him. Desperately holding on to the hope that he would not disappoint his child, House decided he needed to tell him the truth.

"Tim."

"Yep."

"I need you to listen to what I say. Okay?"

"m'kay."

"Good. So... You know I cure people. Like your mom does. And Wilson."

"Yeah."

"People come to us when they get sick, like you did. And we cure them."

"I know. You cuwed me."

"Yes. But... sometimes..." House swallowed the lump in his throat, feeling like a stupid wimp. "Sometimes, people don't heal."

"Why?"

"We don't know."

"What happens then."

"They, uhm... their body, we can't fix it. So, they... go to sleep. To feel better."

"Do they wake up?"

"No."

"So, they die."

House got hit by surprise. He released a breath.

"Yes."

"You'we sick?"

"Yes."

Tim seemed to grasp it. He was completely focused on House's words, his eyes sending glares.

"My mom can't fix it?"

"No one can."

"Why."

"We don't know, kid. It happens. Sometimes we're lucky, sometimes not."

"I am lucky."

"Yes, you are."

_Thank god you are._

"House."

"What."

"You will die?"

"I will die, Tim."

House blinked, trying to wipe the fog off his eyes.

"I'm sowwy."

"It's okay. I'm sure you'll take care of the girls."

Tim raised a shy smile.

"That's why my mom is sad?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Like... You love my mom. Like moms and dads. You said so."

"Yes."

They went silent. Tim tossed and turned in his bed. Then he sat up, staring up at the paper plane once again.

"Then maybe..."

House started to feel the weight of those thirty minutes.

"What?"

"Wachel says we have no dad."

"I know."

"Then maybe you can be my dad. And Wachel's? Befowe you go?"

House stood up, grabbing his cane and reaching for the door. He turned to Tim, his hand already wrapped around the door handle.

"Would you like it?"

"Yup!"

"Then, maybe."

He gently closed the door behind a pensive Tim lying down in bed, his innocence rocking him to sleep without noticing the new paper plane resting on the nightstand: House was getting good at origami.

–

9AM

"I can count up to a gazillion!" Tim stared up at the ceiling, in search of stars only he could see.

"No, you can't! There's nothing you can count up to a gazillion." Rachel was pacing the room, gesturing with her hands. "You can count houses, apples, mom's shoes, mom's books... But there's no such thing as 'a gazillion'".

"There is!"

"I want to see a gazillion things. So I know you are right."

Tim grabbed a book from the nightstand.

"Count the letters!"

"But it's boring!"

"But they are a gazillion."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"How."

"'Cause I twied..."

Cuddy flashed a glance at Rachel dancing around the room, chatting as usual, while Tim was sipping his fruit juice, sprawled in the leathered armchair, swinging his legs. They were ready to go home. With a warm sense of relief filling up her heart, she realized how her children were fond of each other: Rachel had been so sad and lonely during her brother's illness, that seeing her so happy again was a bliss. She turned back at her brother in disbelief.

"You counted the letters?"

"Yup."

"You finished up?"

"Nope. I got lost."

"See then? You don't know!"

"I know, Wach! I asked House."

She froze, in awe.

"Oh. And what did he say?"

"He said there are gazillions of gazillions of things. Like... he said the stars. But you can't count them."

Rachel kept staring at Tim, eyes wide open.

"Why he said we can't count the stars. I want to try."

"He said we can't see them all. But that they are there."

"That's sad. I want to find _a gazillion_."

They went silent for a moment.

"Hey Wach."

"Yup?"

"We can twy tonite. I count half sky, you count half sky."

_Half sky._ Cuddy leaned against the wall, enjoying that juicy, almost philosophical conversation.

"But House said..."

"He also said we had to twy."

–

Later in the afternoon, Tim got discharged. House watched Cuddy and the kids fade into the sunset trying to push its way through the automatic doors which separated the hospital from the world. From an outside full of unanswered questions about a future whose thin fog prickled House's skin. From the rest of his life, that same life slowly headed to its end. Chilling, he turned from the sight of Cuddy, her curls dancing in the breeze coming in from outside: they were tied together, bound to their entwined destinies: for a moment, he felt as if the hours were piling up too fast. The days. The years: everything would be inexorably corrupted, bleached, forgotten; he would have fallen away with everything he was before. What made his soul ache in both incredulous love and invincible sorrow was that not even in the worst scenario of his future she would be missing: their hearts were staplegunned to each other like the artwork of a child. Cuddy would have been there for the years to come, and the troubles to come. And the love to come. As if she had perceived his quiet sadness, she turned back, raising her stare up to the balcony where he stood, arms crossed, leaned forward against the sill. Their gazes met and the silvery liquidness of her irises infused peace into his troubled bloodstream: those seconds seemed to last a lifetime, freezing them motionless in the world's crazy, unstoppable loop. House exhaled, the corners of his lips gently turning upwards. Not because he was dying. Not because she needed him. Not because he needed her. Not even because they had a child together.  
>But for the stubbornness and the turns and the hundreds revisions; for the pursuit and the back-and-forth and their grand, past failure; for the crazy, unreasonable chance they had taken in the last year, and just for the sake of being right as they both loved to be, well. House thought that for all those reasons they both deserved those years to come, and the chance to just <em>be<em>. As they were meant to.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

_Release me_

* * *

><p>"Timothy, Rachel.<p>

I'm pretty sure you guys will get all misty-eyed just knowing that this letter exists. If not, it'll mean that I did a good job in creating two insensitive monsters before leaving, and that your mom will have to get over you two being normal, healthy teenagers who don't need a therapist to cope with my absence. If, by any chance, you two end up spilling tears over this, don't feel bad about it: I'm sure Wilson cried a lot more, and I frankly hope he doesn't try to evoke my presence every night by recounting all of his daily adventures to the nightly nothingness. Just in case, I'd recommend a prank call around 2AM. Say it's god who says to shut the hell up.

Anyway, I'll never know if you sop up the paper in tears, so you guys are safe from mockery.

Rach, I'd say that I came too late to be your dad, and for this I guess you have to blame the awful timing your mom and I have always had: you puked on my shirt once, and I guess every kid puking on someone's shirt eventually ends up being loved as offspring. At least this is what happened to me: I've always liked you as a person. You were an interesting kid, and you enabled me lying to your mom a shitload of times: I'd have avoided having to change a couple diapers to find that damn dime you swallowed when I babysat you with Wilson, but I have to admit that watching pirate cartoons with you was tons of fun.

And then, Rach, I want to tell you how much I hope you were happy to have me back: I had been missing you loads and when I came back you were just as I remembered you, but just a bit more... talkative. Thanks for not being mad at me for disappearing and then being back. You were a cool child and I'm sure you are growing up into the smart, beautiful, intelligent woman you deserve to be. I had trouble being a dad to you and your brother, mostly because a father shouldn't expose his children to some of the things that happened to me and I certainly did not want you to suffer from what was going on with me. But I also ended up caring: this is the collateral effect of having you wrecking balls around. I had the best fun while caring, and this is nice, because you get paid back for the effort of being worried all the time that the two lumps of clay are developing into well-adjusted human beings. Speaking of which.

Tim. Buddy. Do me a favor and do not become the hopeless loner I was. I know that being a genius is the coolest thing, and mostly because you get to be all pumped up about that with Wilson. But you can play the piano for the people you love, and it's much better that doing so for your glass of scotch. I would say that you will have a hard time being flawless at everything you do. Please, try something you are completely bad at, from time to time. Struggle to find it, son. It helps your ego and I'm sure that it'll save you much of the pain I got for being the self-satisfied jerk I was. Ask your mom.

And then. You are precious and cool and the smartest little head I know, and you have a good family. Your mom is a bit nuts from time to time, but she's okay and if she was able to love me for all those years, then I could swear she's the most enduring wicked witch I've ever met. She's been a good mom for you when I was away, and when I met you, you were the most interesting person I had run into in a long time. Same be told for that weird Wilson guy: he was with you all the time, and I'm pretty sure he instilled you with a bit of his selflessness. This means that you have absolutely no excuse for being like me.

Enjoy your beautiful mind and share it with the people you love: this is what I would have done, what I tried to do in these years we got to spend together. Timothy, I don't know how good a father I was. I certainly was untrained and clumsy and I seriously hope I did no damage: what I can say for sure is that I am grateful for your love and admiration and for that time you hid under my desk to play with the brain model I had in my office. I didn't tell your mom where you were, until she called security. Sorry if you got interrupted. I did my best. I also did my best not to drop my jaw when I found you playing my piano in the middle of the night. Tim, buddy, you scared me sometimes. When you get your PhD in whatever you decide to be board-certified-good at, give the diploma to your mom and leave for a road trip with your friends. Smoke pot if you get the chance (once). Find love. Piss your sister off from time to time. Just don't shut yourself away in a library, which is not good for getting sex.

I loved having a son. Even when I was not part of your life, which confuses me because I didn't think I could care about someone I didn't even know. Still, I cared. I was just too hurt and too guarded and also too stupid to come back sooner. Then again, your mom came to me and we had the best fight just before getting it right. I'd say that when I knew you I loved having a son even more. Thanks for being born without us planning it, 'cause it frankly saved a couple of hopeless lives. Also thanks for not dying when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with you. Thanks for the patience.

Wilson. Get out of bed and go to work. And stop talking to me at night, it's just stupid. We had the best time and you are the most mindlessly loyal human being I know. Thanks for being an idiot, I had fun mocking you. Thanks also for the words and the food and the free therapy and the love. The love was reciprocal, at least (but I'm not an idiot so don't dare believing we're even). Thanks for taking care of Cuddy. Please don't stop.

And Cuddy, please don't ever regret what you did. I asked you and I was selfish. I shouldn't have and for that I'm sorry: despite all that, once again you agreed to help me. I can't speak to you as I wish I could. I can't see almost anything. I got unlucky, once again, and the disease decided to progress on its own faster than we thought. Or maybe I just ignored it for too many years and this is just the natural course of it. I knew what was going to happen when I had the latest stroke: when the next one finally gets to my reasoning mind, then I won't be willing to live like that. If I only could, I'll take care of this on my own. But I can't, and I hope doing what I asked does not ruin the beauty you have inside, which is frankly astounding.

I love you, Cuddy. Words just don't do justice to anything I want to tell you right now, mostly because I wasted all my energies trying to say something true and meaningful to the kids and Wilson. I just want to highlight that we had the best sex and the best fights, sometimes at the same time, and that you are the best boss on earth, mostly thanks to your Afghani prostitute everyday uniform. Cuddy, please don't curl up in a ball crying your heart out over my gravestone: remember that paperwork piles up inexorably while you miss me hopelessly. I'm not coming back. I don't think I'm going anywhere I could miss you, because I just can't believe. But if by any chance I earned my share of heaven, I'll spend my afterlife missing the only angel I've ever, ever met in this mess of a godless life.

'bye all. Take care, whatever. I could not have wished to be loved as that. Love you back (doing my best),

H."

* * *

><p>Jun 11, 2017<p>

He was sleeping. Like a diaphanous entity, his chest moved so slightly at every breath, that he seemed not of this earth. She bent over and laid herself down beside him, trying to occupy the fraction of an atom not to disturb his quiet journey. Listening to the sound of his heart, and that alone since she had turned off the monitors, she tried to breathe in and out with him. Every molecule of air got inhaled slower and slower by the two of them, as seconds and then minutes flew by. Eventually, she could swear he had blinked awake for a moment, the last glares of blue caressing her teary cheeks. But then, when the desperate need for air had made her give in, he had remained still.

The letter rested quietly in the second drawer of her desk from med school, ready to be opened in a near future no one could have foreseen better than him.

* * *

><p>What if you<br>Could wish me away  
>What if you<br>Spoke those words today

I wonder if you'd miss me  
>When I'm gone<br>It's come to this, release me  
>I'll leave before the dawn<p>

But for tonight  
>I'll stay here with you<br>Yes, for tonight  
>I'll lay here with you<p>

But when the sun  
>Hits your eyes<br>Through your window  
>There'll be nothing you can do<p>

What if you  
>Could hear this song<br>What if I  
>Felt like I belong<p>

I might not be leaving  
>Oh so soon<br>Began the night believing  
>I loved you in the moonlight<p>

So, for tonight  
>I'll stay here with you<br>Yes, for tonight  
>I'll lay here with you<p>

But when the sun  
>Hits your eyes<br>Through your window  
>There'll be nothing you can do<p>

I could've treated you better  
>Better than this<br>Well, I'm gone, this song's your letter  
>Can't stay in one place<p>

So, for tonight  
>I'll stay here with you<br>Yes, for tonight  
>I'll lay here with you<p>

But when the sun  
>Hits your eyes<br>Through your window  
>There'll be nothing you can do.<p>

* * *

><p>The End –<p>

* * *

><p>an – So, here we are, I guess. I seriously hope I did not disappoint anyone's expectations. This was a delicate chapter, and I though to end the story in a special way, in House's words. This story had the most subscriptions and alerts and reviews I've ever gotten, so I really wish I could see many of you guys saying goodbye with a review.

Special love and special thanks to Iane Casey, Partypantscuddy, Laurieluver, IheartHouseCuddy and all the people not missing a chapter of this, not to mention my secret readers Maya, Mélanie, Mag (no wait you had a nickname, right?). Thanks to my twitter reviewers LapizSilkwood & SabrinaSitthy & SissiCuddles and to the silent readers waiting for my updates.

What's next? Return to Innocence, which has a happy ending, by the way.

Thanks for reading!

a.


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